Briatore: Several Teams Have Illegal Cars

Renault are more than likely not going to copy Williams F1's rear diffuser design ahead of the Melbourne race, as announced by team principal Flavio Briatore. Well, maybe he didn't specifically confirmed it, but his latest comments on Williams' and Toyota's different view of the rear diffuser system have certainly pointed in that direction.

The Italian believes what the two teams have done is illegal and is frustrated with FIA's decision to allow the designs to be implemented on the 2009 challengers. According to Briatore, the FIA rule book is quite clear in terms of rear diffuser construction and leaves no room for interpretation.

“There are two rules, one which allows a team to have a diffuser of a certain conformity. When other teams had ordered it, it wasn't legal and it's a weird situation, something we weren't expecting,” said Briatore, according to the Associated Press.

“There's a rule but then if everyone reads it in their own way it makes for some odd situations, which isn't logical. There are teams that aren't doing things correctly and following the rules,” added the Italian.

When first unveiled, both Williams FW31's and Toyota TF109's rear diffusers were believed to not be compliant with FIA's new technical rule book for 2009. However, FIA's race director Charlie Whiting approved the two systems, which were later characterized on the F1 official website as highly innovative and interesting (not at all illegal).

Briatore also believes that running the Kinetic Energy Recovery System from as early as Melbourne should not be an option within the F1 paddock. Either all or none of the teams should use it, as it creates unequal chances otherwise.

“It's not fair that we start some cars at Australia that have KERS and others that don't have KERS. We're hoping for black and white rules that are equal for all,” added Briatore, according to the aforementioned source.

Whiting is currently investigating some of the 2009 cars present at the Barcelona testing this week, as reported by German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. According to the same source, the 3 cars initially scheduled for FIA investigation are Williams FW31, Toyota TF109 and BMW Sauber F1.09.