• 2011 season

Double diffuser ban to cost engineers two seconds a lap

A ban on complex double diffusers will brought in next year © Sutton Images

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Early simulations show that next year's Formula One cars will be about two seconds per lap slower due to the ban on double diffusers.

Last year, teams including Brawn, Williams and Toyota stunned their rivals by designing cars with the controversial, larger diffusers. Once the FIA declared the concept legal at the end of a bitter dispute, all the other teams hurriedly introduced double diffusers and then based their 2010 cars on an even more developed understanding of the concept.

But for 2011 conventional diffusers will return, and it is hoped that in conjunction with the major aerodynamic rule changes introduced for 2009, the double diffuser ban will slow the cars and make overtaking easier.

It is exactly one year ago that Red Bull - not one of the original diffuser teams - introduced its first double diffuser at Monaco.

"This race last year was the first race that we introduced the double diffuser to our car and if you compare where it's evolved to today, it's just monumental," Red Bull boss Christian Horner said. "Basic simulation suggests in the region of two seconds, maybe more [can be gained with a double diffuser]. So it's an enormous contributor to performance.

Horner added that a lot of the hard work done by the FIA's Overtaking Working Group to clean up the cars' aerodynamics and promote overtaking in 2009 had been negated by the double diffuser.

"Of course it's had an enormous effect on the work of the Overtaking Working Group because what they set out to achieve was significantly aimed around the wake of the car and obviously the double diffuser has had an enormous impact on that," he said. "It will be a big change and it's going to be an interesting challenge. Engineers tend to be creative people and I'm sure they'll claw back some of that, but it's certainly a significant reduction in downforce for next year."

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh also said that he thinks the ban will help increase overtaking and believes it should have been brought in earlier.

"I think that one of the challenges that Formula One has always had is to control performance but also to enhance the opportunity to overtake," Whitmarsh said. "I don't think any of us can, hand on heart, say we have the magic formula for that, because if you've got good drivers in good cars on the type of circuits we're at, then it's always going to be difficult.

"But tangentially, if you can reduce the wake of the car, if you can reduce the effect that the wake has on you and you can reduce the aerodynamic downforce then one can imagine that's going to allow the cars to be closer in the first place and hopefully facilitate more overtaking. I think it's a good thing. I think Formula One was a little bit slow, frankly, in prohibiting double diffusers.

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