Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey has said that the ban on off-throttle exhaust gases being used to blow diffusers has been delayed because of reliability issues.
The FIA signalled its intention to ban the practice ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, before delaying its enforcement indefinitely following consultation with the teams. Newey said that Red Bull had pointed out that its Renault engines use the throttle on over-run for exhaust valve cooling, which means that any ban could have a major impact on the reliability of the engine.
"Well, I think the key to [article] 3.15 is that it talks about 'driver over-run then the throttle should be closed' then in brackets 'idle speed' so it seems to be implying that the throttle should be closed at idle, which it clearly is. What the throttle does on over-run at other times is not clear in the regulations, not as expected.
"Certainly, in the case of Renault, then they open the throttle to full open on the over-run for exhaust valve cooling, and that's part of the reliability of the engine. It has been signed off through the years for dyno testing and for them to change that would be quite a big issue, because the engine's not proven that it would be reliable if the throttle remained closed in that situation."
Having clarified Red Bull's position, Newey also intimated that the same could not be said of the other teams usage of the engine.
"Obviously if other people are going further and perhaps firing the engine on the over-run then clearly exhaust valve cooling is not part of that and that would be something that presumably they would need to explain to keep Charlie [Whiting, FIA technical delegate] happy."
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