Brawn: FIA right to ban off-throttle diffusers

Ross Brawn has backed the FIA's decision to ban off-throttle blown diffusers, saying it has prevented the season from being marred by protests.

"Leaving things as they were, we were going to get protests and we certainly did not want that," the Mercedes GP team boss told Autosport.

"Fundamentally I would rather leave things alone, but what I would not want to see is a lot of protest and F1 getting into a mess and into issues and the appeal court.

"We have all been there, and we all know what happened with the diffusers a couple of years ago. This is different because the FIA were completely happy with the legality of diffusers, but now they are saying, 'somebody made a point and we can see it is a valid point so we want to control this'.

"Once you reach this stage you have to go down that route, and you cannot do anything but. The FIA are saying: 'we are not comfortable; some teams are saying we are going to protest, and we have to resolve it'.

"And I think the time we were given to resolve it was a good compromise, because the teams concerned could have protested it a few races ago, but they agreed to hold off and let everyone find a solution and get to where we are today."