Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, BMW-Sauber and Renault's appeal has
been turned down. They and the other 2 teams (Force India and Toro
Rosso) are now rushing out their own diffusers, with BMW expected
to get theirs first at the Spanish GP.
FIA declares
double diffusers legal
The FIA International Court of Appeal has declared the
double-decker diffuser designs used by Brawn GP, Toyota and
Williams as legal.
Following overnight deliberation by the judges after a court
hearing in Paris on Tuesday, the ICA has rejected the appeals
lodged by Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and Renault. BMW Sauber and
McLaren had also entered the appeal as affected parties.
A statement issued by the FIA on Wednesday morning said: "The
FIA International Court of Appeal has decided to deny the appeals
submitted against decisions numbered 16 to 24 taken by the Panel of
the Stewards on 26 March at the 2009 Grand Prix of Australia and
counting towards the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship.
"Based on the arguments heard and evidence before it, the Court
has concluded that the Stewards were correct to find that the cars
in question comply with the applicable regulations."
The ICA's decision is a blow to those teams that did not pursue
the design concept when they created their 2009 cars - as it is
widely accepted that the double-decker diffusers have brought a
performance advantage.
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen suggested last week that the diffuser
decision would be vital for the outcome of the world title - with
his team likely to have to wait for several races before being able
to fit a suitable one to their car.
"The FIA's Court of Appeal will decide about the diffuser and
this decision will have an enormous impact on the championship,"
Raikkonen said.
"We're missing grip and downforce. You just need to analyse the
performance in the three sectors at Sepang to understand that we're
losing a lot compared to the best cars. You could see it especially
in the middle sector where downforce is really crucial.
The row over the diffusers has also led to intense confrontation
between the rival factions - with Brawn GP team principal Ross
Brawn being on the receiving end of attacks from Renault and
Ferrari about his use of the diffuser concept.
However, he has stood firm in his belief that the design was
legal – and confirmed recently that he offered rivals the chance to
close off the regulations to prevent teams exploiting the diffuser
designs, but they rejected the opportunity.
"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."