FIA aiming to avoid "nasty surprises" in Bahrain opener

The FIA has revealed to assisting the 10 F1 teams in the build-up to the new era of aerodynamic regulations with a series of legality checks on their cars in a bid to avoid what it has described as "nasty surprises" at the first race in Bahrain.

Past experience has taught world motorsport's governing body that a new concept or idea by one team can often be protested by a rival at a season-opening race if it has missed a trick, such as Brawn GP's double diffuser in 2009

To understand the possibilities this year, Mercedes has described the rule changes as arguably the most extensive in F1's history.

As has been seen by the "real" cars unveiled so far, such as McLaren, Williams and Aston Martin, there has been a degree of diversity with regard to the interpretation of the rules.

Asked whether there were any alarm bells ringing from the FIA's perspective over what it had witnessed so far, the head of single-seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis said: "We have seen some cars launched.

"We're also undergoing a process with the teams and doing individual sessions with them to track their legalities so that we try to avoid nasty surprises in the first race.

"That is proceeding okay as a process."

Conceding to seeing "a few surprises here and there", Tombazis added: "There are some areas where there is a bit more difference between the cars than we expected, where engineers have applied their innovative skills to come up with solutions.

"So I think we will see a lot more differentiation than maybe you were expecting to start with.

"I wouldn't say there have been any massive alarm bells so far. It's been relatively mild, still within what we think is a completely fair interpretation of the rules.

"We haven't seen anything equivalent of the double diffuser or anything like that."

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