Hi Martin,
You raise an interesting point, fortunately on a Tornado the gearshift mechanism sits on the inside of the inner panelling, so is not affected by this requirement.
However there is a requirement of the fuel system, that any spilt fuel must not enter the cabin or boot/storage area. Currently on most GT40’s if fuel is spilt around the neck it may drain into the front storage area and is considered unacceptable.
This has not been raised before because there is currently a waiver on this requirement, but I’m not sure how long it is for. The Lotus 2-Eleven fails this as the filler cap is on the deck behind the passenger compartment. However it will affect people slower on their builds (me!). I was given this advice from one of the testers at the Norwich IVA test centre.
Fortunately this is very easy to resolve by ensuring that any split fuel is channelled into the wheel arch area, with a collector around the filler or even a simple vertical plate splitting off the fuel area and the front storage area. You could also argue that the front section is not for storage, but why put the testers back up!
Hope this all makes sense
Andy