After the whirlwind of action over the past few weeks in Formula 1 the dust is finally settling.
Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams found a loophole in the regulations regarding the rear diffuser. They took it and at the pre-season tests they were considerably quicker than the other cars. The other teams complained, the FIA provisionally said that they were legal – as did the stewards at the Australian Grand Prix – and more recently an appeal has been considered and rejected.
Forgive me for being cynical but do we really think that the other teams, if they had spotted the loophole, would have thought that it just ‘wouldn’t be cricket’ if they were to follow it up? No. That is about as likely as Mr Mosley putting a ‘Spank it to the Max’ sticker on the rear of his car (an item you may be interested to hear that can be bought at the Nürburgring).
What’s more, Ross Brawn approached the other teams before the season started asking whether they wanted to clarify that area of the new rules. They politely declined.
Formula 1 is all about (restricted) innovation. And I admire any team that can gain an advantage by legally interpreting the rules in a different way. If the FIA was to rule the other way at the appeal and claim that the diffusers were illegal then it would have been a sad, sad day for the sport. What was quite telling was the fact that certain teams started redesigning their rear diffusers as soon as they saw the Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams cars, long before they were declared legal…
Hear Hear Hear Hear Hear
I for one am relieved by the ICA decision. Hopefully we would now be able to concentrate on racing and see how the season unfolds without any further distractions…although we still need to wait what happens on the 29th. Is somebody at Daimler going to say that enough is enough and switch allegiance from McLaren to Brawn? Just a thought…
Aleš, I’d be quite happy for Brawn to become the factory Mercedes team and McLaren the customer team. I’ll still be a McLaren supporter though, I see no reason to switch after 35 years.
We would need to see what McLaren is going to look like after all this and without Ron Dennis. In spite of being a natural leader, he had this strange ability to lose control of a situation he had created…the relationship with Lauda, Prost/Senna, Mansell, Montoya, the entire 2007, and now this.
I don’t fancy Force India’s chances of keeping the Merc engine if only two teams can be supplied.