March 27, 2009

Formula One's latest controversy turned serious on Friday when all but one of the top seven cars in practice for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix ran with bodywork considered illegal by most teams.

Only Mark Webber drove with conventional rear underbody sections on his Red Bull.

The Australian was fourth quickest but quickly declared he would be nowhere near that fast in qualifying.

Williams, Toyota and Brawn GP are the three teams using the contentious rear diffuser, said to give them an advantage in terms of grip and airflow.

Williams driver Nico Rosberg dominated both 90-minute practice sessions, leading the timesheets throughout.

The Brawn of Rubens Barichello was second ahead of the Toyota of Jarno Trulli with Webber fourth in the day's second session.

Jenson Button's Brawn finished fifth while the Toyota of Timo Glock was sixth and Kazuki Nakajima's Williams seventh.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner led a protest to the FIA against the use of the radical diffuser but early on Friday morning race stewards ruled it legal, allowing the cars to race.

This means the issue will go to the FIA's court of appeals and it could be months before the results of the Australian Grand Prix are finalised.

Webber said no one would know the real affect of the diffusers until race day.

"No one here knows the ultimate pace until we get going on Sunday and even then we might see some teams not show their full pace on Sunday if they've got something up their sleeve so I think they will be very keen to keep this advantage if they can, legality-wise, which so far they seem to have done," Webber said.

"But I don't fear there will be two different championships in the race.

"I think it will still be a competitive grand prix and that should not get in the way of what the ruling is.

"The drivers, as you know, can't do much about this stuff, it's up to the boffins to sort it out."

Defending champion Lewis Hamilton confirmed the trend of disappointing pre-season test results for McLaren by finishing a lowly 18th in practice, one spot behind teammate Heikki Kovalainen.

"Obviously we are not as quick as we would love to be but we are working very hard," Hamilton said.

"In general it's a good car, it's just a general lack of grip everywhere pretty much, it's not particularly in one area of the track, it's everywhere.

"The guys back at the factory are working very hard to rectify that but it's no quick fix," he said.

There will be another practice session Saturday morning before qualifying in the evening.