Ross Brawn, the Mercedes GP team principal already worried about possible loopholes in the regulations:
As exhaust gases still there on the car and massive energy comes out from those pipes what do you think about the future? It is a new area for aerodynamic developments?"I don't think it is 100 per cent sorted unfortunately, and there is another meeting of the TWG."
"I think everyone, as they get more and more into it, are trying to close off the loopholes, but there is no guarantee that somebody will not come up with some scheme. It is fairly robust, but I would not say it is 100%, and I think the difficulty now is it is reaching a stage where teams will take their opportunities rather than change the regulations.
"Teams go through a period of finding the best regulations they can with good spirit and proper intent, and then you reach a stage where those regulations are fixed with the best intent. But if an engineer comes along with a good idea we have to consider it.
"In our case it is still relatively conventional, but whether someone else will come up with something dramatic I would have to wait and see. I would not say I am confident that there will not be an innovative exhaust scheme because once we have learned something you cannot unlearn it.
"The strength and performance that comes from the exhaust, using exhaust energy, is substantial, and people now have a better understanding of what they can do with exhausts/engine mapping to extenuate the effect."
I am pretty sure that the new exhaust position will be made to interact with the DRS system to detach and re-attach the airflow - I strongly suspect that some teams are using the DRS actuator to link vents between the underfloor and wing structure to "vacuum up " the boundary layer as required .
Though I'm not completely familiar with the regs on the matter, it has to be said
