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#102485
From autosport.com:

Brawn tabled diffuser 'fix' last year

By Jonathan Noble Sunday, April 5th 2009, 07:14 GMT

Rivals teams rejected an offer from Ross Brawn to tidy up the technical regulations 12 months ago, and head off the possibility of double decker diffuser designs being adopted.

While the row over diffusers continues to overshadow the sport, ahead of a hearing of the FIA's International Court of Appeal in April, Brawn has revealed that at a meeting of technical directors last March, he proposed modifying the rules to ensure that proper limits were introduced on areas teams could exploit.

"In March 2008 that was offered," said Brawn, when asked by AUTOSPORT about the matter.

"If I'm frank I didn't say 'look we are going to do this diffuser if you don't accept this rule' because I'm not going to tell people what we're doing, but I explained that I felt that we should have a different set of rules to simplify what needs to be done.

"I offered them and they were rejected, so my conscience is very clear. And those rules that I put on the table would have stopped a lot of things. It would have stopped the diffuser, it would have stopped all those bargeboards around the front, and it would have cleaned the cars up.

"Because it was clear that when we started to work on the regulations that there were things that you could do, and we needed to perhaps clean them up, but nobody was interested. They are interested now."

Brawn GP has been protested, along with Williams and Toyota, at the opening two races of the season for the diffuser design that rival teams do not believe are legal. The stewards at both the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix, however, have stated that they believe the designs are within the regulations.

Despite what happened with the offer to change the rules last year, Brawn says he has not been frustrated by the protests, although he has expressed some disappointment at critical comments aimed his way by Flavio Briatore.

"I don't like some of the comments some of the other team principals are making but they are uneducated and uninformed so if they looked at the facts then they would realise that," he said.

"But I have always tried to wear two hats. One is what is good for Formula 1 and I wear that hat for a certain period, then I take that hat off and I wear the 'what's good for my team' one be it Ferrari or whoever it is.

"For sure there are periods when I am very happy to say what is good for Formula 1 and that is the period a year to 18 months before you start doing a car. What's the best thing to do?

"When we get in to designing the car and actually creating it, you can't go back then and say 'oh we have found this great new feature I had better stop it', its a different hat you have to wear.

"And everybody in F1 I hope does that. When there is plenty of time you try and get the rules in the best shape you can, and when the rules are decided you have to go flat out in producing the best car you can within those regulations."
#102493
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.
#102494
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Dont just beleive what the teams are saying, i guarentee you that all the temas that dont have them, complaining or not, will have had people working on them since the stewards ruled Brawns to be legal.
#102497
I think all of the teams will have been working on something, just in case. I do think McLaren are a special case, because as it became clear the MP4-24 was seriously flawed, they decided to take the risk and start working on something straight away.

And, yes, Denthúl, I'm saying Fraudster Flavio hasn't got a leg to stand on. :hehe:
#102512
That pretty much settles it, if a revision to close the loophole was tabled and rejected by the teams, they have no case.
#102522
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P
#102523
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P

No surprise! The fact that McLaren haven't even protested makes me think they have been working on one since the last Barcelona test when they realised that the car was crap.
#102525
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P

No surprise! The fact that McLaren haven't even protested makes me think they have been working on one since the last Barcelona test when they realised that the car was crap.


I think the reason that McLaren (and Force India) did not protest was entirely political. They all share the same engine manufacturer... ;)
#102526
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P

No surprise! The fact that McLaren haven't even protested makes me think they have been working on one since the last Barcelona test when they realised that the car was crap.


I think the reason that McLaren (and Force India) did not protest was entirely political. They all share the same engine manufacturer... ;)
But what could BGP do about it if McLaren protested?
#102528
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P

No surprise! The fact that McLaren haven't even protested makes me think they have been working on one since the last Barcelona test when they realised that the car was crap.


I think the reason that McLaren (and Force India) did not protest was entirely political. They all share the same engine manufacturer... ;)
But what could BGP do about it if McLaren protested?


Talk to Mercedes. I think Mercedes were the reason that the protest was not lodged - they want their engines to be on the podium and winning races. McLaren and Force India are, currently, not performing well, so it would not have been worth the risk getting the Brawn diffuser outlawed as there was always the possibility that then none of their engines would make it to the podium.
#102529
So "Fraudster Flavio", as you put it, had no grounds on which to whine? Awesome.

That's great to hear, makes me feel more confident that Williams, Brawn and Toyota will be cleared at the hearing.

The non-diffuser teams making this issue should go away and make their own diffuser, they only have themselves to blame particularly when McLaren get theirs working and they get ahead of the non-diffuser pack. Because McLaren are the only team to have taken the hint that they should do something about it instead of sitting back and moaning.


Actually, Theissen admitted that BMW Sauber had started working on their own as soon as the protest was thrown out in Australia! :P

No surprise! The fact that McLaren haven't even protested makes me think they have been working on one since the last Barcelona test when they realised that the car was crap.


I think the reason that McLaren (and Force India) did not protest was entirely political. They all share the same engine manufacturer... ;)
But what could BGP do about it if McLaren protested?


Talk to Mercedes. I think Mercedes were the reason that the protest was not lodged - they want their engines to be on the podium and winning races. McLaren and Force India are, currently, not performing well, so it would not have been worth the risk getting the Brawn diffuser outlawed as there was always the possibility that then none of their engines would make it to the podium.

But if you look at the flip side the casual viewer may think that it was a case of the B team beating the A team which never looks good (Obviously I don't in anyway think that BGP is a B team they are entirely separate). You may well be right personally I think Mercedes want to see McLaren win more than anything else.

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