Williams/caterham exhausts

[RealSquirrels]

So apparently the exhaust designs on the new Williams F1 and caterham cars are not legal, says the FIA:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105623

This seems rather interesting to me because the logic they are using to make their case seems rather... thinly applied.

There are regulations about the placement of bodywork behind the exhaust but the FIA do not dispute that, apparently there are no problems there. Apparently their reasoning goes that:

"Exhaust gases are allowed to have an incidental aerodynamic effect, but what Williams and Caterham have attempted is understood to be seen as overstepping the mark."

which is crazy, given pretty much all the teams cars are running bodywork designed especially to extract an aerodynamic effect from the exahaust. I would hope a reasonable steward would not agree with the FIA in this case, since using the principle described to ban the williams exhaust ought to result in all of the teams having their exhaust systems banned.

[Allyc85]

Should just have them either sticking out of the engine cover like a Gp2 car, or behind the rear axle. JD.

[anonymous-user]

Allyc85 said:

Should just have them either sticking out of the engine cover like a Gp2 car, or behind the rear axle. JD.

I thought that to be honest, if the FIA don't like all the exhaust/aero trickery why don't they just mandate that they exit beyond the rear axle??

[Mutley]

www.racecar-engineering.com/news/fia-deems-caterha...

"The FIA cannot make an official ruling as testing is not governed by the full technical regulations, and the teams are free to continue to run whatever bodywork they want."
So who knows what the teams will actually run with in Melbourne, and whether this will just blow over and be "forgotten"?