Ross Brawn: Mercedes novel F-duct is difficult to copy – Formula 1 news
Ross Brawn, the team principal of Mercedes AMG has said that the novel F-duct design of W03 which has been immensely criticised in 2012 Formula 1 season is reasonably cheap yet difficult to copy.
The Brackley-based team has been facing opposition over the legitimacy of their DRS-activated F-duct device especially from Red Bull Racing and Lotus.
Eric Boullier, the team principal of Lotus threatened to protest against the qualifying result of the season opener held at Albert Park in Melbourne over the legality of new design of Mercedes. However, the head of technical department of F1, Charlie Whiting
called it to be legal, afterwards.
Even though, International Automobile Federation (FIA) have declared the F-duct design of Mercedes to be legitimate, however, the Christian Horner, the team principal of Red Bull has not stopped raising questions about the compliance of the new device with
the rules and regulations of FIA. Besides, Horner is expecting the final decision from FIA delegate, Whiting ahead of the next race.
Contrarily, Brawn is too busy passing the statement that their rivals are criticising them only because the design is too hard to be integrated into the existing cars even so it’s quite inexpensive.
“The opposition is so fierce (because) there's a recognition it's quite difficult to do,” Brawn said. “It's a very simple, cheap system, but not so easy to implement if you haven't integrated it into your car. This is at the heart of the frustration of some
of our opponents. If someone could put it on their car easily, I promise you we wouldn't be having these discussions.”
Moreover, James Allison, the technical director of Lotus has said that the Mercedes’ F-duct design is not an innovation as it is just like the one which was pioneered by McLaren in 2010 and was banned by FIA.
“Mercedes hasn't invented something; it was there, and other people were under the impression that it wasn't legal. If this is allowed you'll see everyone doing it, and it won't stop there, there are many, many other things that can happen,” he added.
Furthermore, Brawn said that he hopes the FIA will retain its current stance ahead of Chinese GP.
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