Red Bull driver Mark Webber does not believe that this weekend's ban on teams running special engine mapping for their off-throttle diffusers during qualifying will have any significant impact on the current pecking order on the grid.
The ban will come in for this weekend's race in Valencia, ahead of a full ban on the contentious off-throttle blown diffusers for the British GP next month.
Webber's own Red Bull team has been earmarked as being the squad most likely to be adversely affected by the qualifying ban, with the caffeinated squad having enjoyed a huge advantage over their rivals on Saturday so far in 2011.
But Webber has shrugged off the impact of the ban on Red Bull, suggesting that every frontrunning team would be affected to a similar extent.
"I don't think they will make the car any faster," Webber shrugged in Thursday's press conference, "They will be the same for everybody. We need to adapt again and get used to it."
He added: "Our team are used to adapting to a change in the regulations. I don't think it will turn the field upside, but everyone will be in reasonable shape. We are quick."
However, he did question the timing of the ban, coming midway through the season, suggesting that the FIA knew that teams were likely to go down the engine mapping route with their blown diffusers for a long time.
"Obviously it would have been very cost effective to know this before the season started, as everyone [was] looking at it at the end of the year," Webber mused.
"It is not a trivial thing to throw in the middle of the season for teams, but they will adjust. Everyone is in the same boat. It is the same for everybody.
"We are not overly concerned [but] it is not a cheap exercise to make adjustments off the back of it."
Webber's mild unhappiness at the timing of the ban was echoed by Renault driver Nick Heidfeld, another team predicted to be adversely affected by the ban.
"I don't really know why something that, to my knowledge, until now has been perfectly legal is changing in the middle of the season," Heidfeld was quoted as saying by Autosport, "But that's the way it is and we have to work with it."
He added: "I'm very interested myself in finding out how that will affect us, because nobody knows. You can guess and make some assumptions, but I don't know.
"I hope that it will somehow benefit us, but it's very hard to know what effect it will have on us and the others."
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