Mirrors change confirmed, but not until Spain

Mirrors on F1 cars will have to be placed on the main body of the chassis from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards, it has been announced.

The decision was made ahead of this weekend's Malaysian GP by the FIA - F1's governing body - after consultation with the teams. It had been reported that the ban might come into effect from the Chinese Grand Prix in two weeks time, however, the outfits affected - namely Red Bull Racing, Ferrari, Williams, Force India, Sauber and HRT - have now been given longer to make the necessary adjustments to their cars.

Currently all of those teams have mirrors fitted on mountings right away from the side of the cockpit for aerodynamic reasons.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel feels it could make a significant difference, however Felipe Massa is less concerned: "I don't think we are going to lose anything by moving them from one place to another," the Ferrari man told Spanish newspaper, AS. "For me, I have no problem with it."

The changes have been forced through on safety grounds and follows issues last weekend in Australia when a number of drivers' had visibility problems.

"As far as I'm concerned it is agreed that we need better visibility," Barrichello told the Associated Press ahead of the third round on the F1 2010 schedule.

"Everyone is having problems with the mirrors and hopefully we are going to get that changed quite soon.

"We need to see what we are going to do for Monaco, because [otherwise] Monaco is going to be hell."