FIA explains diffuser appeal decision

Almost a week after the diffuser appeal was thrown out by the International Court of Appeal in Paris, the FIA has issued a full explanation of how the decision was arrived at. It's a lengthy document, very technical and it gives all the reasons why the judges found the way they did.

There were multiple grounds submitted for appeal, all of which were thrown out, from procedural error by the Melbourne stewards to going against the spirit of the overtaking working group to unecessary expense involved in copying the device.

At the core of it was a judgement on whether the device was outside the technical regulations. This came down to debates on multiple transitions between the two planes beneath the car and what an 'enclosed hole' is.

It's all pretty dry stuff, but seems very thorough to my non-technical eye. Anyway you can read it for yourself on

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/the-fia/court_appeal/judgments/Documents/ICA-14-04-2009-a.pdf

There is quite an interesting passage where this case is compared to the Renault mass damper, which was declared illegal. But the bit that caught my eye and which I found quite amusing was the passage referred to by Williams CEO Adam Parr after the hearing, where Ferrari's lawyer appeared to suggest that Ferraris of recent years were illegal, albeit 'less illegal' than this generation of cars... Here's the passage, judge for yourself.

"At the hearing, Ferrari acknowledged that multiple vertical transitions had been used by many teams in the past, including Ferrari itself, and argued that all such prior uses (including its own) had constituted a technical violation of the TR which had been tolerated.

"However, it argued that where multiple transitions had been used at the front of the car, rather than the rear, this constituted only a minor breach which could have been easily remedied, had it been necessary to do so, without a significant detriment to performance. Ferrari contends that multiple vertical transitions at the rear of the car have not been seen before and constitute a more serious violation which should not be tolerated. "

Anyway that's that over with, unless BMW decide to continue with its appeal from Malaysia, which Mario Theissen did not rule out. F1 teams are now engaged in an arms race to build their own versions of this hotly contested device as quickly as possible.

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