Re: Patrick head on diffusers, regulations and following the letter of the law

"Chad" <cbstun@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dan wrote:

The OWG weren't trying to ban a specific design, they were drafting
regulations aiming for a 50% downforce reduction.

The OWG proposals actually specified that the difuser exit should be 330mm
forward of where it had been.

I believe no longer allowing exploitation of the loophole that saw bodywork
and aero devices previously placed in the crash light zone was the specific
way they planned to achieve this.

This is a pretty key foundation of my opinion, so if you don't agree with
that bit it's likely nothing else I have to say will hold much weight. (just
letting you know)

I don't disagree with this. The OWG proposals included a lot of
other changes, as well, of course.

Brawn (like all teams) were trying to design the fastest possible
car within the proposed regulations.

Brawn noticed that their design generated significantly more
downforce than the '50% reduction' the regs aimed for and not only
notified the TWG about this but even proposed rules that would
prevent what they were doing.

Of *course* they aren't going to reveal exact details about their
design to their competitors.

In the case of the DDD three I think they had a responsibility to explicity
point out the incorrect wording during the rule writing phase.

But that's exactly what they did. They told the OWG that the
proposed regs didn't do the job, and provided alternative wording
that would have.

They were charged with writing a set of rules that intended to outlaw that
part of their design.

Actually they weren't, that was the OWG's job. However, they did do
exactly that - they did write and provide a set of rules that
outlawed their design.

If they allowed the loophole to stay then they simply
did not state the case strongly or clearly enough imho.

Ah, so it's Brawn's fault their proposal was voted down by other
teams?

Actually, given the appalling performance of Honda for the previous
couple of years, it's perhaps not too surprising that other teams
might dismiss their claim of generating mighty downforce. :)

[snip]
If you missed the start of this thread, Brawn's use of the DDD was praised
as a brilliant part of the 2009 campaign. I wasn't trying to characterise
Brawn as more or less sly than anyone, just that I thought his involvement
in the DDD saga was not worthy of praise as he had acted slyly and gained an
advantage he would not have otherwise had... unless other teams stuck to the
OWG proposals, rather than relying on wording loopholes in rules they had
participated in writing themselves.

I simply object to the word 'sly' since it usually implies something
underhanded or deceitful - and I don't think Brawn's exploitation of
the rules as written is either underhanded or deceitful. I don't
even think it was in any way sneaky, since they were the only ones
that tried to get it blocked.

I'm not sure I'd classify the diffuser design as brilliant, but it
was certainly innovative and I'm all for innovation.

My vote for design brilliance would go to Red Bull, who managed to
produce a car that was almost as fast yet without using a DDD.

3. there is evidence (from Brawn's own mouth) that he was working on
the DDD difuser design at the same time as voting on OWG proposals
and rule wording. I don't think we can say that for sure about
anyone apart from Brawn.

I'm pretty sure the other teams weren't all sitting on their hands
and waiting for the final regs before they got started with any
design work.
[snipped examples]

I'm not sure of the relevance, no doubt everyone was working on their 2009
cars during the OWG process.

The relevance is that all the teams were doing the same thing -
trying to design their new car based on the proposed regulations.
They didn't have time to wait until they were all final and signed
off. (And if they HAD, there wouldn't have been any opportunity even
to propose blocking any loopholes discovered.)

I'd take a bet that the other teams weren't leaving blank patches in
their design in areas that were affected by the OWG proposals, be it
defuser or whatever other parts were affected. I don't think you can
claim the non-DDD teams hadn't designed a diffuser until the rules
were signed off.

If it's ever shown or reliably reported that Brawn walked in and said
anything remotely like; "this rule we are writing could be interpreted this
way, and allow me to put aero devices in the crash light zone" and been
ignored... then I will reverse my opinion immediately.

I think anyone who saw the DDD as an option had a responsibility to do
nothing less than that. Proposing some other form or wording without an
explicit explanation still counts as sly for me.

I guess we just disagree on what consitutes 'sly' behaviour then. :)

In fact pre-meditively
planning it to come out that way would be up there with crashgate in terms
of morality for mine. (but we cant mind read the participants to know if
that was the case of course)

Right, because people could have been seriously injured by the DDD
design.

Dan

.

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