Fernando Alonso has said that the 14th April FIA decision on whether Brawn, Toyota and Williams’ rear diffuser designs are legal or not could effectively decide the world championship.
The Spaniard, whose Renault team was one of the first to highlight the suspected contravention of the rules in the three teams’ designs, told Spanish radio Cadena Ser that it was by far the most important issue of the 2009 season so far.
“We’ll have to see what they decide on the 14th [April]…the championship could be more or less decided,” he stated.
He went on to illustrate how significant the issue was by explaining what the other teams would have to do if the design was called legal.
”If they are allowed to race with it they have a bit of an advantage and all teams will try to copy that idea. But it’s difficult because you have to work on the whole car. It’s not just adding the diffuser and suddenly the car is a second quicker.”
“The diffuser makes you go fast if you have a new front end, new sidepods, a new engine cover. You have to rebuild the whole car and that would take a lot of months,” he concluded.
His remarks are thought to be most ominous for the Red Bull team, who because of their more complicated suspension design, will have to redesign and rebuild whole sections of the chassis to change their diffuser. Conversely, the teams who have the design already incorporated will have a further advantage.
