Formula One News

Formula One News » FIA: Red Bull not target of diffuser, mapping changes Posted on 26/06/2011

The mid-season rule changes concerning engine mapping and, from Silverstone, the use of blown diffusers have not been made to peg back the Red Bull Racing team, FIA race director Charlie Whiting insists.

The paddock has been rife with suggestions that the championship leader was the main target of the bans, which will see teams unable to change engine maps between qualifying and the race from this weekend in Valencia, and the use of blown diffusers – in both ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ mode – outlawed from the British Grand Prix in two weeks’ time. Whiting, however, insists that the sport’s governing body has taken the decision on technical grounds, rather than with any political motive.

“I’m aware of some stories being written but, to be frank with you, I know it’s not a political decision,” Whiting told journalists in Valencia, “I know it’s purely a technical intervention on our side and I feel perfectly comfortable with that.

“It is not for us to say whether or not one team will be penalised more than another. It depends how extreme they’re going [with their engine mapping], and I’ve certainly seen evidence of maps from a number of teams that are ‘extremely’ extreme. It’s not confined to one team.”

Red Bull largely pioneered the major advances in blown diffuser technology, hence the belief that it was being penalised more than its rivals, but Whiting maintains that the systems are being outlawed simply because they contravene the spirit of the regulations.

“There isn’t anything to prevent [a team] from exploiting the use of their exhaust gasses – providing those exhaust gasses are there for the genuine reason of engine combustion,” he conceded, “We know exhaust gasses have an influence on the aerodynamic performance of the car and we accept that. The point is that a design should not attempt to use the exhaust for a completely different reason [aerodynamics as a primary, rather than a secondary effect].

“We only want to target this one specific issue – what we think is illegal use of maps for aero reasons. We don’t want to influence the perfectly legitimate systems on the car, engine braking for example. We’re happy for them to use that, but we want to be sure it isn’t being abused.

“We’re saying that if a driver comes off the throttle – zero pedal – then the throttles have got to be [at most] ten per cent open at 12,000rpm and [at most] 20 per cent open at 18,000rpm.

“Similarly, we will look at any extreme use of ignition. We will know what the team used to do with regard to fuelling and ignition. If we see a clear imbalance, then I think we will suspect it is being done for different reasons [other than delivering torque]. We haven’t put clear limits, we haven’t put plus or minus 20¡, for example, for a given torque demand. We have just said the set up that you use for fuelling and ignition must be normal for the demanded torque. We are looking for anything abnormal. I think that’s the best we can do for the moment.”

Whiting insisted that each team would treated on its merits, because not every engine design was the same across the grid.

“One engine manufacturer is asking for a little bit more, for what appears to be genuine reasons,” he revealed, “We have the ability to go back on this particular point, to look at 2009 maps, when [teams] did not have in place the exhausts that they have now. If they needed 28 per cent throttle in order to achieve 0Nm at 18,000rpm back then, then that would appear to be a perfectly reasonable request. The engines haven’t changed: they are homologated engines and identical to the ones we have used from 2007 onwards.

“A lot of it depends on engine architecture. For example, we have to be very careful not to disadvantage barrel throttles versus butterfly throttles, because they have a distinctly different way of working. In answer to the question, if it’s clear that, in 2009, one engine with a butterfly throttle only needed 15 per cent [at zero pedal], but another engine using a barrel throttle needed 20 per cent, we could make a distinction. We don’t want to put a figure across the board which will affect one team in a different way to another.”

Asked why the decision to alter the rules regarding maps and diffusers had been taken midway through the season, the main source of suggestions that it was to penalise RBR, when the equally contentious double diffuser and F-duct ideas were allowed to survive until the end of the 2009 and 2010 campaigns respectively, Whiting again underlined the FIA’s belief that the current technology contravened the rules.

“The double diffuser and the F-Duct were legal,” he pointed out, “However, during the course of the season, the teams got together with us and we decided they weren’t good for F1 and weren’t needed, so we wrote laws to outlaw them. But they complied with the rules, which is why they were allowed to stay until the end of the season. They were completely different to the situation we have now.

“Our argument is that there is a strong case to suggest [that blown diffusers] are illegal, [although], ultimately, the stewards will decide. We have not had protests yet, though I have always emphasised to the teams that this option is open to them. I think everyone is doing the same thing, to some degree, so I think we need to be sensible about this and approach it in a pragmatic way to get the situation under control.

“It’s a bit like the mass damper, where its use – when it was first introduced by one team – was fairly benign when it came to aerodynamics. But the more it got developed, the more extreme the designs were. These things escalate to the point where something has to be done.”

The ban on running different engine maps was among the main talking points of the European GP weekend, and Whiting took time to explain how the situation would affect teams from Valencia onwards.

“A team can’t have a base map in the ECU that is only good for a few laps,” he insisted, “If you want to use it, you have to use it for the whole race.

“The teams are [now] not allowed to make any changes with a computer that they plug in. The drivers are still allowed to change things from the steering wheel, [although] the single ECU only supports fine adjustments from the steering wheel. In very general terms, anything that can be done from the wheel is okay, [but] anything they need to connect a computer for is not. We are on the verge of issuing a note to the teams to give them a list of things that they can change when they connect their computers but that will be a very limited list.

“We will allow certain changes to be made for ambient conditions. Normally, we only announce a change of climatic conditions if one [session] is dry and one is wet, but we have indicated to the teams that, if there is a change in ambient temperature of more than 10C between qualifying and the race, we would allow them to compensate for that. But that’s all.”

Whiting also admitted that there could be further changes made to F1′s use of DRS, red flags and safety cars, following a review of events in recent races.

While the introduction of DRS is recognised as having enhanced the racing in 2011, the use of two ‘overtaking zones’ got off to a shaky start in Montreal.

“I don’t think it worked in Canada, [but] we weren’t really expecting it to,” Whiting admitted, “It was more an experiment, as the second section was too short. One of the things that has emerged from it is that, if a driver passes in the first sector, he’s then able to use the wing again in the second. We were aware of this, of course, but we’ve had a chat with the drivers about this and the general feeling is that we shouldn’t allow the driver to use it for a second time if he has passed in the first sector.”

“It isn’t a trivial matter to get that to happen automatically, so we’re still discussing it. We are going to try to use two sectors more, but I think we do need to address this point.”

Asked whether there could be separate detection points for each overtaking zone, Whiting also insisted that it wasn’t quite as easy to implement.

“If we had two detection points, we would need two notification points and two activation points,” he explained, “It doubles the chance of something going wrong, and we have had a few problems because it all relies on loops and beacons beside the track. That’s the only thing I’m a little wary of.”

With red flag interruptions in both Monaco and Montreal, Whiting admitted that there were things to be learned from the very different circumstances and outcomes.

“I think there are two things we’ve learned from suspending a race this year,” he conceded, “One is we need to discuss with the teams whether or not working on cars should be allowed and whether a change of tyres should be allowed during a suspension.

“Also – and I never would have thought it – we maybe need to think about a maximum time for the race. At the moment, as you know, the time for any suspension is added onto the two hours, that’s why we ran for four hours and four minutes [in Canada], so we’re going to discuss that with the teams.

“I think the procedures worked perfectly well. Unfortunately, quite a few spectators left. I don’t know what happened with television broadcasts, that must have been quite difficult for TV companies, to know when to cut to something else and how long it was going to be. It would be nice to have been able to say during the suspension how long it might be, but it was almost impossible.”