Friday, April 10, 2009

TWG to clear up Williams complaint

Williams expects the complaint that led to its protest against Ferrari and Red Bull Racing at the Australian Grand Prix to get cleared up by technical chiefs later this week.

The Grove-based outfit originally lodged a complaint against the designs of the Red Bull Racing and Ferrari cars - claiming that the teams were illegally using an unregulated area in front of the sidepods for aerodynamic advantage.

The matter was discussed at length by the team and the race stewards in Melbourne but the protest withdrawn after it was found out that McLaren, Scuderia Toro Rosso and Williams' engine suppliers Toyota also featured similar design concepts.

Williams co-owner Patrick Head now says that the matter should get sorted out in a meeting of F1's Technical Working Group, which is made up of technical directors, later this week.

"As I understand it, it's one of the items on the agenda to be discussed at the next Technical Working Group, which is on Thursday," he explained.

"I believe there were ten cars on the grid with the particular design detail that we said didn't comply with the regulations, and it's not something we thought was a major performance differentiator. So I think it will be tidied up behind closed doors and clarified on Thursday."

Head denied any suggestions that Williams' decision to protest only Ferrari and Red Bull Racing over the matter was a tit-for-tat response to those two teams protesting its diffuser.

"No, [it is] none of that," he said. "Those were the teams we observed it on, and we were quite surprised to find the stewards said there were ten cars."



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