blown diffuser officially banned

Formula 1's ban on the off-throttle use of blown diffusers will definitely come into force at the British Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT can reveal, after the details were finalised by technical chiefs and the FIA on Thursday.

Just days after FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting wrote to the teams to make it clear that he was determined to push through the ban, the matter was discussed in detail by F1 thinktank - the Technical Working Group

Although no official statement has been made about the outcome of the meeting, sources have revealed to AUTOSPORT that the FIA saw no reason to postpone its intended ban any further than Silverstone, having delayed its original start date of the Spanish Grand Prix because of what it feared would be 'unintended consequences' for teams.

This will effectively limit teams to using just 10% of engine over-run when the driver is off the accelerator - which will prevent the clever mapping systems that have pumped almost full throttle exhaust flow through engines when the driver was not on the power.

As well as the change for this year's regulations, the teams and the FIA agreed a bigger revision to the 2012 rules that will make it impossible for teams to run any form of blown diffuser.

Rather than limiting the location of exhausts to a box near the centreline of the cars, as originally suggested in Whiting's latter last weekend, the TWG agreed that the rules should instead force teams to run top-exit exhausts - which were common in F1 several years ago.

This change was made because some teams believed that even having exhausts exiting at the rear of the car above the diffuser meant there was still a chance of them being able to influence the car's aerodynamics.

The changes for the British GP are expected to affect almost every team on the grid - although how much it has an impact on the competitive order is unclear.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali suggested in Canada last weekend that the revisions could lead to a completely different picture for the second half of the championship.

"We need to see in Silverstone, what is the real effect of this change in the regulations with regard to the effect of the exhaust," he explained.

"Then, we will see really where is the second championship in terms of the level of performance above all in higher downforce tracks."

source: autosport link : http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92374

Great news, hopefully the red bull advantage is reduced and everyone gets a chance at Pole position and a win

they reckon teams will lose between 0.5 - 1 second

i reckon red bull and renault may lose more then that cos their cars essentially rely on the blown on diffuser

Red Bull still have 'flexi wing' advantages. Red Bulls copious amounts of engineers will have something else up their sleeves. They seem to be the masters of thinking outside of the stipulated regulations.

so this off throttle banning has been implemented but if the red bull is suddenly losing half a second of its original pace then surely this season is an absolute joke. hypothetically lets say vettel wins the WDC in brazil by a few points and in the second half of the season only manages say two wins because of the reduction in the red bulls advantage compared to ferrari n mclaren. Would this WDC win for vettel be worthy, it would be an absolute embarrasment to formula 1 and the rule makers who dithered n did nothing about it for months. i hope you understand what im trying to say. by wasting time the FIA have allowed vettel and the red bull (with off throttle ) to gain a huge advantage over the field. i think its a joke!

i don't get how it can be illegal and results from earlier in the season still stand?

anyone know why they still stand ?

Last year, red bull got away with the flexi wing so I'm sure they'll figure out a way to get around the rules with this as well.

The FIA have dropped an almighty clanger with this one

Its a bit odd to ban a part or system part of a car half way through the season. I agree with John, it will undermine the wins Vettel already has IF its a complete turnaround for the rest of the season.

They should have banned it either before the season started or ban it before the start of next season imo. Open to reasons why they could or would not do that.

CM
I think the cynical reason for this being a mid season 'ban' (really an introduction of new regulations, so the previous cars were not illegal) is that the expectation is RB will lose more of their performance advantage especially in quali, and so increase competition at the front.

For all that there have been a number of exciting races this year and lots of on track action, Vettel has dominated in a fairly boring way in several races - take pole, lead off the line and win without ever being headed.

At the moment, Vettel and RB are untouchable in quali trim, and the suggestion is that this is where the biggest gains are made from the engine mapping and blown diffuser configuration (and that RB are the best at this), and that the other teams have struggled to catch up.

Do kind of agree though, that once something has been allowed at the start of a season, unless it is demonstrated to compromise the safety of the cars it should remain legal until the end of the season - it is then up to the other teams to 'copy' and improve on the system (as happened with the initial double deck diffuser - Brawn implemented it first and others copied the concept and ultimately produced quicker cars).

It must be really annoying for the teams who have spent loads of money implementing the system and playing catch-up to Red-Bull only to then be told that it's illegal.

Bonjourno!

Going back to the start of 2009, Brawn GP were absolutely dominant at the start of the season with their double decker diffuser system, which, after appeal was deemed legal.

The best of the rest was easily the RB5 with it's single diffuser. Most important thing to note here is that it was not a blown diffuser at this point. This single diffuser allowed their package to keep up with the Brawn.

What's my point? If Red Bull had the best unblown diffuser back then, what chance will everybody else have when it is implemented back into their car. If anything, this rule change could cause an even bigger advantage to Red Bull, just when a rejuvenated Jenson Button MBE was leading a charge in the silver Mclaren.

Am I being to realistic?

you're beign realistic and i was taking your post seriously until the mention of JB MBE was mentioned. lol you just dont quit do you.

As I recall, the double diffuser wasn't banned midway through the 2009 season...only for the start of 2010.

While I'm happy that the FIA is at least taking a stance of the blown diffuser issue, it does strike me that, banning off-throttle blowing (or at least severely reducing it), is a panic move, driven by desperation to level the playing field, after they've seen just how big an advantage it gives some teams.

To be honest, I'm not that bothered that Red Bull will still have their flexible front wing. In race trim, the Ferraris and McLarens are more or less equal, if not slightly better. Just losing their downforce advantage in slow corners should be enough to make both racing and qualifying a lot more interesting.


@Critical_mass: you actually took Alessandro seriously?

I know shame on me! haha