Teams vote for F-duct ban on grounds of safety, cost

A written plea by McLaren did not convince the British team’s rivals that controversial ‘F-duct’ innovations should be allowed to stay in F1 in 2011.

During a team meeting last weekend in Barcelona, a majority of the bosses voted for a rule tweak that will outlaw the controversial downforce-stalling solutions for next year.

After McLaren invented the straightline speed boosting concept this season, teams including Sauber, Ferrari, Williams and Mercedes have experimented with their own versions.

It is also believed that Red Bull, Renault and Force India are working on the concept at their respective factories.

But Red Bull’s Christian Horner indicated that the vote against F-ducts for 2011 was influenced by the marginal safety of the systems seen in Spain last weekend.

Both the Sauber and Ferrari drivers were activating the airflow with one of their hands, often out of high speed corners like Barcelona’s turn 3, while simultaneously fidgeting with other controls including brake balance.

“It’s a clever piece of engineering and hats off to the guys who invented it, but some of the solutions this weekend look a little bit marginal when you see drivers driving with no hands basically,” Horner is quoted as saying by the BBC.

“So I think there is a safety issue and a cost issue to take into account,” he added.

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