The Toyota was considered suspect right from its first appearance at the Portimao test in January (LAT)

So what will happen on Thursday? Well the scenario runs as follows. During the day all 20 cars will be scrutineered, and assuming they are all found to be in conformity by technical delegate Jo Bauer, the official entry list will be published. It’s at that stage that a window opens during which protests can be made, and we can expect to see Ferrari, Renault, BMW and Red Bull (possibly backed by Toro Rosso) take action. McLaren, thanks to its compromised position as engine supplier to Brawn, is likely to sit back and watch, as will Force India.

The aforementioned teams have obviously consulted together, but protests have to be made by individual teams against individual cars. So unless they’ve shared out the workload – Ferrari against Toyota, BMW against Williams etc – that means we could see something like 12 protests, filed by the four teams against the three. It’ll be even more if STR has been roped in.

At that stage the stewards will consider the matter, taking into account Bauer’s report and whatever he and Whiting have to say in person when they are interviewed. At some stage late on Thursday they will come up with a decision. There’s a strong likelihood that – assuming that Whiting’s view that the cars are OK remains unchanged – the protests will be rejected. In which case the protesting teams will appeal that decision, and a Court of Appeal will be set for Paris in the days after the Malaysian GP. So nothing else will happen either in Australia or at Sepang.

The alternative but probably less likely answer is that the stewards uphold the appeal, in which case the three ‘diffuser’ teams will appeal that decision, and the same process clicks into gear in Paris. The difference is that the three teams will contest these first two races with a cloud hanging over them, in that the cars have in effect been deemed to be illegal before they even take to the track.

My guess is that the first solution is the one that we’ll see, although of course the stewards reserve the right to give different answers for each team.
In Paris both sides will be able to put their case in detail, and this is where it gets interesting. Sam Michael of Williams insists that the protesting teams are frustrated because they don’t know the full story of how their rivals have got their diffusers to work, and says he knows they are confused because of some of the questions he’s being asked by his opposite numbers.

In other words the protest is as much about the protesting teams getting information out in the open in Paris as it is about the actual legality. There’s a critical issue of confidentiality here, and it will be interesting to see how that’s dealt with in the Court of Appeal. Will that question of privacy be fully respected?