Newey on blown-diffusers and engine changes

Known as one of the most innovative brains in Formula One, Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey has spoken about why Red Bull has lost its dominance this season.

And as expected, the finger has been firmly pointed at the FIA regulation changes regarding exhaust blown diffusers.

During the 2011 season Sebastian Vettel dominated Formula One, storming to back-to-back titles in Newey's designed Red Bull.

The car was head and shoulders above the rest of the field, but over the course of the winter, Formula One banned blown-diffusers and over the course of this season they have also closed the loop-holes in regards to engine maps to further prevent teams designing cars with improved downforce performance.

Many people in the paddock believed these rules would hurt Red Bull the most as it was them who had sparked this revolution up and down the pitlane with other teams playing catch-up throughout 2010 and 2011 and Newey has now admitted that the changes have hurt them.

'Having explored exhaust blowing technology quite heavily for two seasons and then having that taken away together with other changes like the front wing flexibility [test rules], hurt us quite a lot.

'Probably [it hurt us] more than other people because we had been exploiting it for longer. It has taken a while to try to understand what we need to do and to recover.' he told Autosport Magazine.

While the rules are set to stay fairly consistent over the next year and a bit, the new regulations regarding engines in 2014 is likely to cause a dramatic shift amongst the paddock.

New chassis rules for 2014 will also be more restrictive, giving teams less chances to find an improvement in aerodynamic design, so much so that Newey believes the sport could move more into a engine manufacturers championship rather than a team championship.

He continued: 'In 2014, you will have the variation in engine performance, That means the engine power unit itself, which is not only the internal combustion engine but also the various recovery systems bolted to it.

'It is possible that one manufacturer will do significantly better than the others, at which point you might end up with that manufacturer's cars at the front of the grid.

'You could end up with an engine manufacturers' championship.'