Tuesday, 14th of April. That's the date set by the FIA international court for the diffusers appeal hearing. Ferrari, Mclaren and Renualt protested aganist the U shaped diffuser used by Brawn GP, Williams and Toyota in the Australian GP but the protest was rejected by the race stewards and the teams decided to appeal that decision. But the question is how much do they really count on that appeal?
Most probably the appeal will be rejected too and that is for 2 reasons:
1. The FIA has accepted that diffuser when it was proposed to the FIA technical director before the beganing of the season, even before the teams put it into function.
2. The Stewards have cleared it TWO times (Australia and Malaysia)
3. The appealling teams only protested because the U diffusers are aganist the spirit of the rules (Not aganist the rules itself) as Briatore said:
"The interpretation of the regulations was very clear in the past - the cars need less downforce for safety reasons. Correct?" said Briatore.
"Every time we build a new car it was to be two to three seconds slower than the previous car. Correct? That was always the intention of the Federation (International d'Automobile).
"What happened here is that the three teams are going pretty clearly in the direction of downforce. And as we all knew that we will run on slick tyres from '09 on, it was the intention of FIA president Max Mosley and the Federation to impose new rules to reduce downforce.
"But somebody was going in the downforce direction that was forbidden by the FIA, and that is not following the principles of the rules.
Another issue, The FIA desicion isn't always technical but politics play role!. Let's admit that Brawn is important for Mosley (The Big BOSS) as it is a live proof on the success of his Formula1 vision, a new team with customer engine, low budget but front line performer. So rejecting the diffusers will put an end to a team like Brawn GP because they don't have the budget to build another a totally new car with the regular diffusers. Also they will lose all the points of the first 2 races attracting NO sponsors at all!
The rejection of the diffusers will open the door to the Ferrari/Mclaren age, dominating the formula1 making it less appealing for the crowds and sure that's the least thing the FIA wants.
So why the teams have protested in the first place? That's a tricky question....
Now we knows that they know "The diffusers are technically legal but it is all about ethics", so may be it is just about ethics and that the rules were intended to reduce the downforce and the U diffusers are using a grey area in the rules.
But I can also think that is a media cover!
Imagine a 1 month old team (Brawn GP) hughly outpaced the formula1 big names; Ferrari and Mclaren?! And they can't do anything about that may be until May (Spanish GP) which is the first race that they can have their cars with a U diffuser so they will be in a very bad public situation, it will affect thier image and may reflect on commerical income. The appeal have just opened them a good exit, at least they won some valuable time.
Now, They are officially waiting for the appeal but at the same time working 24/24 to have a one ready.
When I was a child, I have always been told the story of the greedy man that ends with him losing everything because of his greed. I have remembered that story while watching Ecclestone actions and decisions in the Formula1.
The Ecclestone family are the holders of the commerical rights of Formula1. And when talking about commericals then the number of viewers is the principle issue. That was the main problem between him and the organizers of the Australian and Malaysian GPs as due to time differences, the races start at a very unsuitable time in Europe with a minimal number of European viewers and that reflects on the advertising companies (mainly European).
Between moving to night races or cancelling the 2 GPs from the agenda, they agreed to delay the race start until 5pm local time allowing a suitable broadcasting time in Europe. On the first race (Australian GP), with no rain, the race ran smoothly without delays and reached an end before the night time but many of the drivers complained about visibility issues and discouraged the idea of twilight races.
A week from that and on the Malaysian GP, it was expected to face the problem of heavy tropical rain that ususally pours in the afternoon. And that is exactly what happened and finally they had to put the uncompleted race to an end as the sunlight fades in the unequipped Circuit.
I think it was a fair punishment for the greed of Ecclestone, but it was disappointing to millions of F1 fans to see the race ends in that way.
That is excatly how I conclude what happened in Malaysia. It was a really exciting race and showed us how much the new rules have helped to create a highly competitive race. At some parts of the race I was comparing it to the motogp where “taking over” is just a natural outcome of racing unlike the old formula1 where you can count the overtakes on your fingers !!!!.
Except for the dominating Rosberg and Button, the first laps were hot enough to keep you staring at the TV and as the race rhythem began to slow down as the rain started adding more heat to the race especially after the teams used the extreme wet tyres then had moved to the intermediates as the track wasn’t wet enough but nearly after 1 lap of using the intermediates, it started pouring forcing the drivers to pit again for the full wets!!!
Until that the race was thrilling. Unfortunately the rain was above the limits and forced the race control to pause the race and until that I was excited about the restart especially having both KERS and non KERS cars. I had to wait until the rain stops and the track condition improve. But at that point the sunlight was fading and the nighttime was approaching and started to think about the possibilities to continue the race and as the time goes, it seemed to be impossible and they are just waiting for the 2hr (The max. official time for a race) to come to an end to declare the race finished!!!
(The Frustrating part) At the end they had done so with less than 50% of the race remaining so the drivers were awarded half the point only!!
The Final ranking was considered as the lap before the race was stopped handing the win to Button followed by Heidfeld and Glock.
Actually, what is frustrating me is not only that the race came to an premature end but the fact that everyone knows that it rains heavily in the afternoon in tropical Malaysia and with the race set to start at 5pm local time, there will be a very narrow margin to race with a good visibility before the light fades (The drivers had a problem with visibility in Melbourne also because of the late start time). And yet they decided to do so for the sake of Bernie Eclestone who wanted a suitable start time for the TV viewers in the formula1 center (Europe) to make some extra millions of dollars!! Anyway, I will write about that in another post.
Final Race Results
1. BUTTON Brawn
2. HEIDFELD BMW +22.7s
3. GLOCK Toyota +23.5s
4. TRULLI Toyota +46.1
5. BARRICHELLO Brawn +47.3s
6. WEBBER Red Bull +52.3s
7. HAMILTON McLaren +1m00.7s
8. ROSBERG Williams +1m11.5s
9. MASSA Ferrari +1m42.1s
10. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +1 lap
11. ALONSO Renault +1 lap
12. NAKAJIMA Williams +1 lap
13. PIQUET Renault +1 lap
14. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +1 lap
15. VETTEL Red Bull +1 lap
16. BUEMI Toro Rosso +1 lap
17. SUTIL Force India +1 lap
18. FISICHELLA Force India +2 laps
R. KUBICA BMW +30 laps
R. KOVALAINEN McLaren +31 laps
Fastest lap: Button, 1m36.641s
