The FIA freezes engine mappings between qualifying and the race

New twist in the blown diffuser affair. While last Thursday, the F1 technical group and the FIA had decided to restrict this system from the British Grand Prix and ban it next season, the International Federation has sent a note to the teams informing them that the system dear to Red Bull will be limited starting this weekend in Valencia.

The information is reported by Autosport. According to the English site, Charlie Whiting informed the teams that they would no longer be allowed to use different engine mapping for qualifying and racing. This difference in mapping between Saturday and Sunday explains the performance gap between Red Bull Racing and its competitors, who are often left behind in qualifying but catch up in the race the following day.

No doubt that this new FIA measure will put a spanner in the works for Red Bull, suspected by its competitors of using a particularly aggressive engine mapping that provides significant blowing and therefore more downforce during qualifying. This mapping cannot be used in the race for reliability reasons. While the blowing is not directly targeted, it is clear that this will have consequences on its use and will penalize some teams more than others.

This measure is reminiscent of the ban on so-called qualifying engines in the early 2000s when BMW supplied the Williams team. It was with a German engine that Juan Pablo Montoya completed the fastest average speed lap in history at Monza in 2002. This record was broken by Rubens Barrichello in 2004 on the same track with a lap completed at 260.395 km/h.