This isn't new, as many have pointed out already.
I just want to point out that McLaren also had an illegal car, according to the same argument used against Ferrari. This discussion regarding article 3.15 that requires that any part of the car influencing the aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car, (the article that Ferrari was accused of being in breach of) is from the transcript of the WMSC on September 13th 2007:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/62552
It turned out that McLaren also needed to make modifications in order to meet the new requirements. In other words, if the Ferrari was illegal before the new requirements were introduced because they would have failed the new test, then so was the McLaren.
Nigel TOZZI: I cannot ask you about the brake system, unfortunately, not having seen your confidential witness statement.
Instead, I would like to ask you about the attack that you made on Mr Costa's statement, regarding the alleged illegality of the Ferrari car. I will take this shortly, because I do not think it is that relevant, but you make a big deal of it.
Mr Lowe, Article 315, to which you refer, of the Technical Regulations refers to aerodynamic influence: "with the exception of the cover described in Article 652 and the ducts described in Article 11.4, any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance, must, in compliance with rules regarding bodywork, be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car". Rigidly secured means having no degree of freedom. That is the part on which you suggest that the Ferrari car was in breach.
Patrick LOWE: Absolutely.
Nigel TOZZI: Do you agree with me that nothing is infinitely rigid?
Patrick LOWE: I don't know, Mr President, whether we want to explore the finer details of Article 3.15 today. It is a very complex topic; Charlie Whiting is very familiar with it.
Nigel TOZZI: Do you agree with me that nothing is infinitely rigid?
Patrick LOWE: I do agree, hence there are refinements to this in Article 3.17.
Nigel TOZZI: Exactly. The way the rigidity is tested.
Patrick LOWE: But -
Nigel TOZZI: Follow my questions, please!
Ian MILL: My witness is in the middle of an answer. My friend will wait for him to finish.
Nigel TOZZI: I will not be told by my friend what to do, but I am happy to let the witness finish.
Patrick LOWE: Article 3.15 is a very complex and old regulation. The refinements in Article 3.17 do not offer an exclusion, but rather practical guidance on some aspects of 3.15, as Charlie Whiting knows.
Nigel TOZZI: The test for rigidity is that provided for in 3.17-4, namely that the bodywork may deflect no more than 5 mm vertically, when a 500-Newton load is applied vertically to it, at a point which lies on the car centre line and 380 mm rearward of front-wheel centre line. That was the test, was it not?
Patrick LOWE: The test in 3.17 does not absolve one of full responsibility under 3.15.
Nigel TOZZI: That was the test, was it not?
Patrick LOWE: It is not an exclusive test, as to your compliance with 3.15.
Nigel TOZZI: That was the test, was it not?
Patrick LOWE: I have already answered that.
Nigel TOZZI: No, you have not. The answer is "yes", Mr Lowe, because I just read it from the regulation.
Patrick LOWE: That is your answer.
Nigel TOZZI: No, I read it from the regulation. And if you comply with the test, you are deemed to comply with 3.15.
Patrick LOWE: We could spend all day on Article 3.15, with all due respect.
Max MOSLEY: Could I intervene? The situation is as follows. Mr Tozzi means that it is completely wrong to describe Ferrari's system in Australia as illegal; it is one that passed the test as it then existed. You then quite rightly challenged this, and Charlie issued a reinterpretation of the test.
Patrick LOWE: I think the issue is being blurred again by Ferrari. There were two stages to the clarification from the FIA. In the first, it was said that "you will remove illegal devices". An illegal device is a mechanism with pivots, springs, and degrees of freedom that allows one to cynically exploit the behaviour required in 3.17, in contravention of 3.15. There was a further later clarification that changed the understanding for the test. Those are two separate issues. That is clear in my statements.
Max MOSLEY: I do not think that anyone on the World Council would seriously consider that the Ferrari device was illegal at the time, any more than the Renault mass damper before it was eliminated.
Nigel TOZZI: I am very grateful for that. It was important that this be clear, as these proceedings are apparently going to be made public. McLaren has repeatedly asserted, wrongly, that the Ferrari car was illegal, and it is appropriate that the world knows that it was not.
Patrick LOWE: I find that an extraordinary positioned: that something should be only illegal when it is clarified to be so.
Nigel TOZZI: Mr Lowe may find that extraordinary. You have said what you have said, so it is on the record.
Mr Lowe, what about the interesting question about the McLaren car? You tell us, in Paragraph 26, that when the testing was changed for the Spanish Grand Prix, the concept of McLaren's front floor attachment remained unchanged. Did the detail remain unchanged, Mr Lowe?
Patrick LOWE: The stiffness required by the test was increased.
Nigel TOZZI: You were using buckling stay, were you not?
Patrick LOWE: You clearly have not read my statement.
Nigel TOZZI: Oh, I have read it.
Patrick LOWE: That means you do not believe my statement, where I say that we did not use a buckling stay.
Nigel TOZZI: I have a series of photos - a very interesting series of photos - of your car, which show buckling stay, Mr Lowe.
Patrick LOWE: That is what you assume to be a buckling stay, but you fail to understand the behaviour it has.
Max MOSLEY: Can you help us, because I do not understand and perhaps others do not. If it is not a buckling stay, what is the proper description.
Patrick LOWE: It is a pre-buckled stay. It is already in the buckling mode before the start.
Buckling implies that it is stiff initially, then buckles. This means it would be very rigid at the start, then very soft, which would cynically exploit the behaviours in Article 3.17.
Nigel TOZZI: Your suggestion is that nothing on the pre-buckled stay was changed following the change of test by the FIA.
Patrick LOWE: I did not say that nothing was changed; I said that the concept remained the same. The characteristics were changed, because the stiffness requirement in 3.17 were changed.
Nigel TOZZI: Exactly. When I asked whether the detail had changed, I thought you said no.
Patrick LOWE: I said yes.
Nigel TOZZI: In other words, when the rule changed, it was not only Ferrari that had to change its car; McLaren did too.
Patrick LOWE: We changed the detail, as I stated a minute ago, but we did not change the concept.
Nigel TOZZI: It is the pot calling the kettle black.
Patrick LOWE: Those are your own words, and I think you know how you arrived at them.
