Who invented Double Diffuser? Where are they now?

[csirl]

I dont know how true the following is, so would like to find out how much truth there is to it.

Legend has it that Super Aguri's design staff first came up with the double diffuser. Then when SA ceased, a lof of the design staff were merged into the Honda design staff as Honda owned SA and some of them were under contract to Honda. [side note being that some of the SA design crew joined other teams...those who had the DD at the start of 2009 season].

When the Honda designers saw what the SA staff had come up with, they ditched their own plans and adopted the SA DD. Shortly afterwards, Honda withdrew and the team became Brawn and won the championships with car that had its genesis as a Super Aguri.

If there is any element of truth in the above, it leads to the following questions?

1. Are the SA designers who came up with the concept still with Brawn/Mercedes? If not, were is the former SA chief designer?
2. If SA did not run out of funding, how good would they have been in 2009? Being the only DD team would have been a great advantage.
3. How bad would Brawn have been without the DD and whatever other clever features they got from SA? Considering that Honda's own design team had produced some real dogs of cars over the past 3-4 years.

It seems very coincidental that a Honda team suddenly produced a great car as soon as Super Aguri people started working for them.

[duke_toaster]

Mark Preston was the technical director, no idea about chief designer. I don't think Super Aguri would have been in a position to give Brawn many trick parts, bearing in mind the first car they ran was a hacked about Arrows.

[jab]

Ross Brawn has said the guy behind the BGP001 is an unknown junior designer whose name is being kept quiet to prevent another big team poaching him

[Alan Raine]

Originally Posted by jab

Ross Brawn has said the guy behind the BGP001 is an unknown junior designer whose name is being kept quiet to prevent another big team poaching him

I hope he's being paid a lot

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by csirl

3. How bad would Brawn have been without the DD and whatever other clever features they got from SA? Considering that Honda's own design team had produced some real dogs of cars over the past 3-4 years.

Barrichello had his diffuser wiped off by a RedBull at the first corner in Melbourne, and still his car had front running pace.

And obviously since Toyota, Williams and Brawn all had double-diffusers, this wasn't just the work of one man.

The story goes that on the break-up of SA, many individuals took imformation with them to other teams that had hired them.

[stark]

Originally Posted by jab

Ross Brawn has said the guy behind the BGP001 is an unknown junior designer...

GREAT NEWS! Another Ross Brawn / Adrian Newey of the future!

[courageous]

a nice little story which would fit in with Brawn not revealing the guy's name but we will probably never know for sure.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by courageous

a nice little story which would fit in with Brawn not revealing the guy's name but we will probably never know for sure.

It seems hard to believe that just one junior aerodynamcist knew about double-diffusers, when two other teams tested and turned up to Melbourne with the same idea.

Anyway, it's not really that anyone "invented" anything, it was just a different way of interpreting the regulations.

[strider]

Originally Posted by Marbot

And obviously since Toyota, Williams and Brawn all had double-diffusers, this wasn't just the work of one man.

The story goes that on the break-up of SA, many individuals took information with them to other teams that had hired them.

It was one of the Super Aguri guys who took the info with him to Toyota.

So how did Williams reach a similar conclusion about the efficacy (and legality) of the device?

[jab]

The irony is, had Aguri survived, they'd have just been forced to take a modified RA108 this year anyway

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by jab

The irony is, had Aguri survived, they'd have just been forced to take a modified RA108 this year anyway

Do you really think it would have been possible to modify a '08 car to '09 rules?

[jab]

Well BMW did with their test hack they tested before Xmas, and quite a few teams (including Honda) tested 09-spec parts on 08 cars. At the end of the day, only superficial changes were made bar the addition of KERS (which some teams didn't bother including anyway)

[Dead-Eye]

Interesting. I knew they did it for testing purposes, but I didn't think those cars would have been legal to race...I thought there were bigger differences chassis-wise.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by strider

It was one of the Super Aguri guys who took the info with him to Toyota.

So how did Williams reach a similar conclusion about the efficacy (and legality) of the device?

Ah! Good question. Maybe if Toyota could get just part of their car to win a race, that would count as a victory.

[csirl]

Originally Posted by strider

It was one of the Super Aguri guys who took the info with him to Toyota.

So how did Williams reach a similar conclusion about the efficacy (and legality) of the device?

Williams hired someone from the SA design department.

[Chiefy]

In The Official Formula 1 Season Review 2009, Ross Brawn writes about his year, saying...

"It was sometime during January that I got a 'phone call from Ferrari, asking 'had I seen the Toyota diffuser? It was a disgrace and shouldn't be allowed.' I asked our guys what it was all about and they said 'Ooh, we've got one the same as that'!"

He also confirms that many Super Aguri employees wound up at Honda/Brawn and set to work on the 2009 concept before the rest of the team switched focus from its 2008 car.

Good old Christmas presents.