FIA Court Rule Brawn GP Diffuser Legal

The announcement today that the rear diffuser used by the Brawn GP, Williams, and Toyota teams is legal comes as no surprise to many of the on-lookers to this story.

It should also come as no surprise to the Ferrari team, after all, as former employers of Ross Brawn and the reason Brawn had sufficient funds to buy the former Honda Team, they should be well aware of his design ability.

The Ferrari and McLaren teams are now facing a situation that at the end of last season would have been completely incomprehensible. They have been out designed in the factories and are being out performed on the track. 

With the ruling coming so close to the Chinese Grand Prix that the teams without the innovative rear diffuser will struggle to cobble one together in time for the start of the weekend, meaning that Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams will be strongly positioned to reap more points before the performance gap closes up over the coming weeks. 

Fernando Alonso has stated that it will take the teams months to redesign the body work of the cars to incorporate the new rear diffuser. Surely if this is the case then it shows either supreme arrogance or stupidity on the part of Renault, Ferrari and McLaren. 

The rear diffuser became a talking point at practise runs prior to the start of the 2009 season and speculation grew as the Brawn team arrived and blitzed the lap times. This must have been a signal to the other teams to get their design teams working on incorporating this technology should it become legal.

Quite simply, if these teams have failed to do that due to their belief that they would win the appeal then they have only themselves to blame for continued lower performance. 

It will remain to be seen if the teams can catch the leading Brawn GP cars or if there design will give them an advantage for the rest of the season.