Australia: Brawn car protested by four F1 teams

The diffuser on the three cars, although each different, share a similar interpretation of the rules. This interpretation allows the teams to use a 'double decker' diffuser that gains as much as 0.3s a lap according to our technical contact in Brackley.

"I guarantee whoever wins the races in Melbourne will be told they are cheating, and it doesn't matter who it is," said Bernie Ecclestone earlier this week. "In this case it seems two teams, maybe three, certainly Toyota and Brawn, have interpreted the regulations in a different way to the other teams. The FIA at the moment says that interpretation is correct, but possibly some other teams will put in a protest before Melbourne. It won't affect racing but will be looked at after."

Helmut Marko, a senior Red Bull advisor, told Gazzetta dello Sport "It's illegal: we'll make a protest on Thursday if the component isn't modified to conform to the regulations, because that diffuser guarantees a five-tenths-advantage per lap. Seven teams are certain it's illegal."

BMW has confirmed that it will officially protest Williams, Toyota and Brawn with regards the legality of the diffusers the three teams are using. "We will lodge a protest," team boss Mario Theissen told reporters. "We are preparing our protest and then we will see what happens."

McLaren, de facto partners of Brawn GP through their links with Mercedes, have remained non-committal over the issue, with CEO Martin Whitmarsh telling reporters in Melbourne that "A number of teams have told me that they will definitely protest today. Sadly a lot of the column inches this weekend are going to be about controversy and it can easily become acrimonious. In defence of everyone, I don't think anyone has set out deliberately to cheat here."

McLaren admit that, should the protest fail, they will work on a similar style diffuser for their own car. "We have an underdeveloped car, we do not have sufficient aerodynamic downforce and we'd like to focus on rectifying that situation as quick as we can," he admitted. "In order to do so it would be very handy if I could tell our aerodynamics team that these are the rules that prevail. And I can't actually do that today, which means that you've got a foot on the bank and a foot on the boat.

Our contacts suggest such a diffuser already exists in a number of teams and will be on their cars on Friday morning.

RealBrawnGP.com have looked at the rule book and consulted with our technical contacts. There may be a lot of bad blood around the paddock right now, much of it seemingly emanating from a dark motorhome at one end, but we don't believe that's enough to see the protest succeed. However, we can't help but feel the daggers will be out again before too long.