Red Bull Racing technical chief Adrian Newey has suggested that the FIA's upcoming clampdown on the current use of clever engine mapping to boost blown diffuser-sourced downforce may affect Red Bull more than their rivals.
New restrictions on the use of 'off-throttle' engine mapping will come in from the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in two weeks time, with teams limited to mapping designed to generate extra exhaust gases up to 10% of full throttle levels.
Over the Valencia race weekend, top teams embarked on something of a mass PR exercise to try and claim that the ban will impact on them more than their rivals.
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton suggested the Mercedes-powered team would "really struggle" after the ban kicks in, while the Renault team are also thought to be the team currently running the best off-throttle system.
But Newey believes that Red Bull may be hit worst of all, given that they had always designed their RB7 machine to run with the off-throttle system in place.
"We've got a regulation change, let's face it, How that is going to affect us compared to the others is difficult to tell," he explained to the BBC post-race forum programme.
"Lotus Renault, they're the ones who have clearly designed their car around the exhausts, so they I would imagine must be concerned."
But he added: "We designed our car around the exhaust in as much as we had the exhaust solution that you see on the car from very early on in the research of RB7.
"So we've never taken it off before and we don't know how that is going to affect us compared to our direct competitors."
But he added that he was fairly certain that the impact of the ban would be felt more strongly by Red Bull than their frontrunning rivals.
"I think probably that Ferrari and Mercedes will be less affected than we are, McLaren may also be less affected," he guessed, "We designed and develop the car around it the others fitted it basically for the first race."
Despite reports in Valencia that the reason for Sebastian Vettel's slow times during the FP1 session was because he was working with a Silverstone-spec engine map in preparation for the ban, Newey insisted that the caffeinated squad had not yet run the new map.
"We've done some simulation, but we haven't actually run it on the track yet and we don't know how much it will affect the balance of the car," he rambled.
"That's where simulation tends to fall down as you need a real car going round a real track with a real driver."
He concluded that: "[The impact on the car is] significant, but I don't want to put a number on it because I don't know if that number is bigger or smaller than others."
Newey's concerns over Red Bull's post-ban pace did not seem to be backed up in qualifying in Valencia.
The FIA banned the use of special qualifying-spec engine maps for the European GP, which was rumoured to be set to hurt Red Bull's advantage in qualifying, but Vettel still strolled to his seventh pole position of the season.
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