McLaren technical chief Paddy Lowe believes that teams will still find some way to make up the performance lost from next year's ban on exhaust blown diffuser systems, saying that he was sure McLaren would adapt well.
The practice of using exhaust gases to aid the performance of their blown diffusers in 2011 has been outlawed for next season by the FIA.The rules have been changed to force teams to adopt 'periscope' exhausts designed to exit at the top of the rear bodywork of the car.
But although the change will see teams lose a big downforce advantage from this year to next year, Lowe believes that there was no reason why McLaren will "fear" the new rules.
"I'm not in fear over it," Lowe told reporters during his pre-Indian GP phone-in press conference.
He went on: "I don't quite understand when technical directors say they fear stuff like that. What is their fear of?
"The clue's in the name - Formula One. It's a formula - a set of constraints - that we define in the regulations. And once they're set we'll go and work as hard as we can to do as much as we can to make the car quick within those limitations."
And despite the fact that the periscope exhausts will help to remove the issue of exhaust-blown diffusers, which have been a contentious issue through the year, Lowe believes that some benefit from the exhausts will remain.
"We had a bit of a crisis in Silverstone this year with the exhaust blowing situation and reached some agreement in terms of intent next year," he rambled.
"The teams have since worked on a range of limits to reduce the amount at which exhausts can be used to create downforce, but it's never been expected that it would eliminate the effect of exhausts on downforce."
He went on: "That would be unrealistic. No regulation we've ever written has eliminated an in-car effect. There will be a finite effect.
"The simple point is that pointing an exhaust out the back will give you a large degree of thrust. That is an aerodynamic fact, but we all know that we can get a lot more than that. And the teams went into that with eyes wide open.
"So I do find it a bit odd when people claim that they fear that people will generate performance from exhausts. Well of course they will.
"That's what we have to do. It's just that some very extreme limits have been put in place to reduce that drastically from where it was."
Lowe also gave an underwhelmed response to what some have suggested could be F1's new 'must-have' aerodynamic development, the 'front wing F-duct' system developed by Mercedes.
"We are aware of that, there has been quite a lot of coverage," Lowe smiled, "We're not feeling desperately excited about it but we'll see.
"We're not singling it out against many other things we're constantly reviewing that people are coming up with.
"It's in the nature of the sport. You need to work on your own ideas but not have your head in the sand relative to what other people are doing."
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