Formula One news

Williams withdraws protest

The Williams-Toyota team has withdrawn a protest car which it earlier claimed to be presenting to the FIA; the situation involved the Ferrari and Red Bull cars, on which the Grove-based squad seemingly believed that illegal aerodynamic parts were being run.

Following the 'diffuser' protest of Ferrari, Red Bull and BMW against Williams, Brawn and Toyota, Sir Frank's team announced in a dramatic political u-turn after Saturday qualifying in that it believed the Ferrari and Red Bull teams to be running illegal devices themselves, possibly regarding the sidepods of the cars. Race stewards had reportedly held several hours' of meetings over the issue when Williams announced that it was withdrawing its accusations, with the statement coming post-11pm local time.

Australian Technical Director of the team, Sam Michael, stressed that any questionable part of a rival team's car should always be reported and that Williams accept other competitors doing so if their car sports what could be viewed as unexplained features; he also confirmed that the ongoing 'diffuser' issue is not distracting the team, and that people in Formula 1 would potentially "run riot" without the rights to protest.

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