With the final, bloody battle in the Diffusergate saga set for Paris tomorrow, two of Patronise's entirely non-biased and completely objective scribes take the time to argue both sides of the debate, as everyone asks: "Should the diffusers be banned?"
For the defence...
Formula One is all about competition. Well it's almost all about competition, it's also about ridiculous decadence in the face of global recession, Sebastien Buemi's pit radio and dull races at Barcelona. But mainly it is a fight to see who can build the best machine (in accordance with an often strictly-limited rule book). So why, when we have a few teams being cleverer than the rest, are they at risk of being penalised and handicapped for the benefit of those who didn't think of the same solution to diffuser design? I say that this is what makes F1 great. The loopholes, the grey areas, the sneaky, dastardly scheming and planning just for a short-lived moment of one-upmanship to lord over your rivals.
Yet recently, the FIA has been a little too keen to penalise any innovations a team manages to develop. The Renault mass damper or the McLaren second brake pedal, for example (both of which I've mused on here), were banned from a certain point onwards out of fear of an expensive and ultimately futile development war, with all the other teams throwing time, money and geeky personnel at their own copy of the design, with the net result being everyone ends up back where they started, relatively speaking. But in terms of the ethos of the sport,this seems the wrong way to go about things.
Granted, at some point in the future, parity across the grid will be restored, either by the non-diffuser gang teams being forced to catch up, or the diffuser gang being stripped of their advantage. And you could argue that the expense of each and every team making their own copycat diffuser is a bit of a pointless expense. But firstly, any team worth half a bite at the championship will be well on the way to building one anyway (indeed BMW Sauber rather schizophrenically admitted the week they joined the protest that they were at an advanced stage of their own design), and secondly, well, that's not really the point is it?
What if the F1 bosses had decided to ban Lotus's first, foetal attempts at installing front and rear wings on their cars? After all, imagine the expense that teams have spent on aerodynamic changes since then, all to catch up and surpass the early efforts. Or sidepods? Or turbos? Yes, everyone will catch up, but that is how the sport develops. Some teams make a break down a new route, and if it works, everyone copies them. Just be thankful that it turned out to be this diffuser that worked, instead of the Williams walrus wing.
The non-diffuser lot seem to be complaining about an unfair advantage gained by the teams, leading to the topsy-turvy start to the season. But then this is largely more sour grapes, and frankly the shake-up in the established order so far this year is exactly what F1 needed. Also, to claim the three diffuser gang teams have jumped to the front simply thanks to the diffusers is a little bit of an oversimplification. All three started work on their 2009 cars early, all three have made tidy designs, and the struggles of McLaren and Ferrari seem more to be an inability for their cars to recoup the lost levels of downforce rather than simply because they're using the wrong diffuser. The contentious piece of machinery is simply one little piece in the jigsaw of the three designs. Besides, if what you need to leapfrog ahead of the big teams from last year is a dubious diffuser, then how have Red Bull managed it?
Granted, I have a slight level of personal interest in the outcome of the protest being "not banned", given my priapic fantasies about one of the diffuser gang runners in particular, but my feelings would be the same had the protest ended up being about being any of the new innovations, be it the diffusers, Red Bull's pullrod suspension, or even Renault's special attempts to make their car fast by making it as ugly as possible.
In conclusion, the issue over the diffusers is less a critical, season-defining moment, and more a moment of precedent. Are F1 teams still able to innovate and surprise? Or are they destined to spend the rest of the sport's existence tied to overly-strict regulations, and metaphorically lashed across their backs when one steps out of line and tries to do something new? With standard engines, transmission and gearboxes all on the horizon for the sport, I think that we should stand up and salute this final piece of innovative thinking.
For the prosecution...
With the denoument of Dastardly Double Decker Diffusergate upon us, and The Head's quite wordy rant in their defence gracing Patty's pages, it seems only fair that we offer a balanced perspective on this issue. For once. So with one biased body part blabbing on about the awesomeness of three teams rear ends, it's time we lay out some points that show them for the evil, terrorism causing, eat babies for breakfast monstrosities they really are.
Our glorious leader has tried to show you, the members of the jury of public opinion, that the diffusers are just a bit of cleverness on the part of Toyota, Williams and Brawn. Many of the honourable and not at all fat experten that lend their time so selflessly to the interwebs F1 forums have said that the appeals are just desperation on the parts of the four teams that haven't thought their current designs through well enough. Luckily, I am here to point out the errors in their line of thinking.
Before you mail those letter bombs to me, I feel I should point out that I in no way think that the Diffuser Drei's points from Australia and Malaysia should be taken away from them. They passed scrutineering, the cars were technically legal there. The decision from the ICA, assuming justice is served, should just force them to adjust their diffuser designs to everyone else's ideas. They should also be forced to apologise one at a time in an impromptu media conference where they almost say they're sorry, but were misled by a random team member.
Cleverness of design and it's relationship to legality is not an argument that I wish to get into here, rather we should just take a quick glance at the history of F1 and the precedent it sets. From the mass dampers and the flexi floors and wings, to the 3-pedal glory of the '98 McLaren, ingenuity has been cut down like a tall poppy in a very low average height poppy field. The fact that three teams have realised that the rules don't actually say you can't have a jet engine strapped on to the airbox with blue tack doesn't make it good for F1, nor a fair playing field for everyone else. How in the world is Force India supposed to afford blue tack?
The crux of the argument though comes down to the entire nature of F1s current rule set. The channel surfers want cars with slicks and lots of overtaking. After years of moaning and laughable online petitions the powers that be responded, they formed and Overtaking Working Group, a group designed to work on overtaking I assume, and they came back with a set of rules that they said would increase mechanical grip, while reducing aero grip and wake coming off the back of the cars. The wake, which no one can see but is apparently quite scary and causes all sorts of nasty stuff like the hole in the ozone layer, could be sorted by putting on a quirky rear wing and shrinking the size of the diffusers.
This is where it gets interesting, the OWG was headed by Paddy Lowe, Pat Symonds and Rory Byrne. Now those chaps are from McLaren, Renault and Ferrari. Those three teams have a bubbish diffuser, and it's not a coincidence. They knew what was needed to get a car to follow another one closely, and it was a small aero wake which is in a large part produced by the diffuser. This is why, come tomorrow, the ICA must make an amendment to tighten the diffuser rules up, and make double deckers illegal while they're at it - those red buses are quite rubbish. The OWG posse wanted the diffusers to be small and poo, so all teams should have the same ones in principle, it's for the commonweal.
It's obvious that the funky diffusers are against the spirit of the rules, because the guys that came up with the rules and their spirit didn't go down the evil route. They wanted the diffusers to be like the ones on their cars and wrote rules to go that way. Okay, so they didn't write them well enough, fair enough, lets clean up the mess though. The DDD teams get a nice chunk of points for their efforts but enough is enough, the masses have spoken, they want overtaking and the OWG has come up with the best way to get it. Lets enact it properly from now on.
Ferrari, Renault and RBR aren't bitter that they didn't look at the rules hard enough, Ferrari and Renault knew what they meant the rules to be, the diffusers were supposed to be limited so they didn't even look at the rules that hard. RBR went to the FIA and asked if they could have a holey/gappy diffuser and were denied, they were clever too and were smacked down with no appeals process. It's now only fair that they get some of the warm glow from the heater of justice, and that Mark Webber finally gets the winning car that he deserves.
Which, ahem, of couse has nothing to do with me wanting those cheating, conniving, outrageous scum from Brawn, Toyota and Williams cut down from their perch. I just want fairness...for all...honest.
Which side of the argument do you agree with? Vote and have your say over on the forum.
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