Exhaust debate heats up as goalposts move

The blown diffuser sage took another twist today after the FIA issued a further directive on the matter during FP1.

As Charlie Whiting suggested in Valencia, the FIA has listened to the engine manufacturers and adjusted its original intention of allowing only 10% throttle gases when the driver is off the pedal.

Both Renault and Mercedes have been allowed concession on the basis that they ran their engines in a certain way in 2009, before the focus on blowing diffusers took off.

Christian Horner and Martin Whitmarsh are both adamant that the changes favour the rival engine manufacturer, with Red Bull gaining from cold blowing and McLaren from fired over run.

The pair became embroiled in a fascinating debate in a routine press conference this afternoon.

“It’s a very, very difficult job for the FIA to pick their way through this,” said Horner. “And in all fairness to them they have looked to be as fair, balanced and equitable as they decreed they would be through the technical directive to come up with the solutions that they have.

“We’re not totally happy with the solutions we have, that’s for sure, I’m sure Martin isn’t totally happy with his, and I’m sure there are a lot of conspiracy theories in the paddock that these are the reasons why Red Bull is performing or McLaren is performing or some cars aren’t performing. That’s just circumstantial at the end of the day. The fundamentals are that the engine manufacturers are being treated in a fair and equitable manner.”

Meanwhile Whitmarsh responded: “I think there’s been about six technical directives on the subject so far, and it’s moved around, and when the goalposts are moving partway through a practice session it makes it quite difficult. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better to make changes at year end, with which I think Christian will agree.

“To do this and do it in a fairly cloudy and ambiguous and changing way I think inevitably in a competitive environment every team feels it’s been hard done by. At the moment I think potentially lot of teams will end up making arguments to cold blow. Renault have been in that domain for some time, other teams haven’t, and don’t have that experience. We’re talking a very substantial performance benefit here.”

Whitmarsh says that adjustment of the rules should have been saved for next season.

“The intention people believed was that we were going to stop exhaust blowing when the driver didn’t have his foot on the throttle. I think that was the simple concept, but that concept has been deflected, and therefore, it hasn’t been clear. And the fact that these things were only coming out in the course of today is fairly extraordinary.

“I’m sure we’ll remain calm and pick our eay through, but I think it’s probably better to make changes to the regulations between seasons and not in-season, and also make changes to regulations which are clear and unambiguous.

“Clearly at the moment a lot of people are feeling emotional about the situation and I can understand why. It’s frustrating for the engineers not to know what is it we are allowed to do, because by cold blowing your getting 30-40 points of extra rear downforce in braking, and that’s quite an attractive thing. If you can do it then you’re going to do it.”