So, if the 'double diffuser' is ruled illegal....

[Muzzer]

The double diffuser appeal will be heard on Tuesday 14th.

If the diffuser is deemed illegal and all points and results for teams using it are revoked, the results would look like this:

Australia:

1st: Fernando Alonso 10pts
2nd: Sebastien Buemi (!) 8pts
3rd: Sebastian Bourdais 6pts
4th: Adrian Sutil 5pts
5th: Nick Heidfeld 4pts
6th: Giancarlo Fisichella 3pts
7th: Mark Webber 2pts
8th: Sebastian Vettel 1pt

Malaysia:

1st: Nick Heidfeld 5pts
2nd: Mark Webber 4pts
3rd: Lewis Hamilton 3pts
4th: Felipe Massa 2.5pts
5th: Sebastian Bourdais 2pts
6th: Fernando Alonso 1.5pts
7th: Nelson Piquet 2pts
8th: Kimi Raikkonen 0.5pts

Which, IINM, would put the driver's title thus:

1 Fernando Alonso 11.5pts
2 Nick Heidfeld 9pts
3 Sebastien Buemi 8pts
4 Sebastian Bourdais 8pts
5 Mark Webber 6pts

It's unlikely that Brawn et al will be disqualified or have points taken away and there's plenty of what-iffing there but interesting reading nonetheless I think.

ETA - I think Renault would also be leading the constructor's championship. No wonder Flavio's so keen to pursue this....

Edited by Muzzer on Wednesday 8th April 14:59

[Rude-boy]

It is, more so when you consider that if the Hamilton situation hadn't arisen he would have been deemed the winner in Australia.

I do wonder, and certainly my first thoughts before I saw the case against LH/McMerc, if anyone in the FIA had considered this on the Monday after the AusGP...

[Teppic]

Muzzer said:

ETA - I think Renault would also be leading the constructor's championship. No wonder Flavio's so keen to pursue this....

Edited by Muzzer on Wednesday 8th April 14:59

Nope. It would be Scuderia Toro Rosso on 16 points.

There is already a thread on this: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[patmahe]

I was under the impression that because the diffuser was ruled legal by the stewards at both races so far that they cannot be disqualified? and if the FIA rule them illegal on the 14th of April they simply won't be allowed to use them from then on?

[Teppic]

patmahe said:

I was under the impression that because the diffuser was ruled legal by the stewards at both races so far that they cannot be disqualified? and if the FIA rule them illegal on the 14th of April they simply won't be allowed to use them from then on?

Never underestimate Spanky and the other members of the FIA living in "Bizarro World".

[jamieboy]

Bedazzled said:

They didn't take Ferrari's points away last year after the FIA ruled their car's floor was illegal

Nor McLaren's for the fiddle-brakes, nor Renault's for the mass damper.

Is there a precedent at all, where they've ruled something illegal and removed points, or have the teams always kept the points and just had to change it from then on?

[stephen300o]

It's going to be a pain in the arse for who ever the losing side is.

[AlexS]

jamieboy said:

Bedazzled said:

They didn't take Ferrari's points away last year after the FIA ruled their car's floor was illegal

Nor McLaren's for the fiddle-brakes, nor Renault's for the mass damper.

Is there a precedent at all, where they've ruled something illegal and removed points, or have the teams always kept the points and just had to change it from then on?

There is a slight difference though in that the fiddle brakes and mass damper (and bouncy floor) were all used before being protested. The diffuser three were protested before the first practice session.

Ferrari did have their points removed when found to be running the extra large barge boards, but had them reinstated after the FIA's stretchy tape measure and rule book found them to be legal on subsequent appeal.

[JonRB]

Bedazzled said:

If they take away the points this year F1 will become a joke.

Sorry, did you say "become"?

[jamieboy]

AlexS said:

There is a slight difference though in that the fiddle brakes and mass damper (and bouncy floor) were all used before being protested. The diffuser three were protested before the first practice session.

That's a fair point. I think the fiddle brakes and the mass damper were closer to the diffuser issue because they were all actually checked and explicitly passed as being legal, whereas the floor wasn't - it was only allowed to race because the tests in place at the time didn't pick up that it was illegal.

I'd forgotten that the points were removed and then re-instated for the barge-boards, though.

[touring fan]

If they clarify the diffuser regulation and it makes the 'double diffuser' illegal, then it won't be retrospective and won't alter any previous results.

Those teams will just have to change their diffuser from a given date, that's all.

[Teppic]

touring fan said:

If they clarify the diffuser regulation and it makes the 'double diffuser' illegal, then it won't be retrospective and won't alter any previous results.

Those teams will just have to change their diffuser from a given date, that's all.

Which surely would have to be the very next race. No way will the other teams allow Brawn, Williams and Toyota to race with an aerodynamic advantage which has been declared illegal by the FIA, unless the three teams involved raced for no points.

One would hope that the three teams involved have a regular diffuser design ready to be used at a moments notice (in the same way that, if the BBC commentary was to be believed, the non-diffuser teams are working on their own trick diffusers).

Either way, after the hearing on the 14th April, either three or seven teams will have a redundant diffuser design, and will have to design/use a replacement, and the old diffuser consigned to the bin.

What was that about saving money in F1, Max?

Edited by Teppic on Wednesday 8th April 20:10

[Dracoro]

There's a lot of Seb's in F1 aren't there!!

[motormania]

Why are we even discussing this?

It's an openand shut case. The three teams had their diffuser's passed by the FIA during the design phase, the race scrutineers have all passed them as legal. There is nothing wrong with them.

The other teams should be focussing on their own twin or triple deck diffusers to catch up. They are simply pissed off that they didn't think of it first...

End of case, no more discussion!

[Muzzer]

motormania said:

Why are we even discussing this?

It's an openand shut case. The three teams had their diffuser's passed by the FIA during the design phase, the race scrutineers have all passed them as legal. There is nothing wrong with them.

The other teams should be focussing on their own twin or triple deck diffusers to catch up. They are simply pissed off that they didn't think of it first...

End of case, no more discussion!

If only.

Whilst I agree with you, and I think they'll be declared legal if only because Brawn is Max's model of what he wants an F1 team to be, who knows what goes on in the minds of the FIA at times.

You'd have thought Bourdais' defence of Massa at the Japanese Grand Prix last year was open and shut but look how that ended up...!

[stew-S160]

[Teppic]

The appeal against the three teams is now guaranteed to fail - McLaren have joined the protest!

Autosport.com said:

McLaren officially joins ICA hearing

By Pablo Elizalde Thursday, April 9th 2009, 08:44 GMT

McLaren is to join next week's FIA Appeal Court Hearing into Formula 1 diffuser designs in an official capacity, motor racing's governing body has confirmed.

Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and Renault are taking their protest of the diffuser designs of the Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams to the FIA's highest court next Tuesday (April 14), with the concepts having so far been declared legal by race stewards.

As well as those three teams, BMW Sauber last week announced that it was also to join the hearing as an affected party, and now McLaren has also asked to be heard.

The three teams at the centre of the dispute have long insisted that their designs are wholly within the regulations - despite the complaints from their rivals.

Williams co-owner Patrick Head said in Malaysia last week that he believed rivals were only upset about some teams using the diffuser concepts because they had not thought of it themselves. He said, as far as he was concerned, the rules were clear in terms of what was and was not allowed.

"From our point of view it's very well defined and we're happy with it," he said. "As were all the teams. The TWG (Technical Working Group) spent an enormous amount of time on every detail of the rules.

"They weren't written by the FIA they were written by the teams. Charlie Whiting would go to the teams and they would say 'no we're not happy with this.' The teams have participated with the FIA to write these technical regulations."

Head also confirmed that Ross Brawn offered teams the chance to cut off the ability to exploit this area of car design with a regulation change last year.

Head said: "Ross Brawn representing Honda raised in the TWG said we are getting quite a bit more than the 50 per cent downforce and they wrote in a proposal that closed off the possibility of doing what the three teams are doing.

"But it was actually Pat Symonds who said ‘no', that would be too restrictive. And he said that he did not approve those proposals.

"Ultimately the teams are presented with a set of written regulations and the intention and the spirit of the OWG (Overtaking Working Group) rules were not to allow funny bits in front of the sidepod and little guide vanes.

"But because the rules were written with exclusion boxes of certain sizes, you see most of the cars have appeared with a vane of a certain size down the outside of the sidepod and a guide vane in there. It's a little bit of opportunism, as they haven't exploited the written word of the regulation of the diffusers.

"I hope it will all be made clear after the ICA hearing on April 14th. Then everybody will understand and make sure it's clear. I'm sure there were a few hurt egos too, if someone can find a way of optimising their car from the regulations that others could not find. We're given a set of rules and we have to design our cars to the rules."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74358