I understand your point about truth versus opinion, Conceptual - opinions are always better when supported by facts, but statements need to be supported by facts. However, this:
Conceptual wrote:So, the point was that Flavio should have just jumped the bandwagon and got the DDD into production after Australia because his team needed more downforce, and this was a 5% gain. The drama that he spewed all over the media was nothing more than a way to get more technical information about the other teams solutions, so his team benefitted by starting ahead, instead of from scratch. For all of his whining about the cost of developing the DDD, he knew that they would have spent much more trying to find that 5% elsewhere.
That is what I was saying about Flavio's trash becoming Symonds' treasure. Flavio dug it up with the "protest" shovel, and Symonds picked the lock in the Simulator/Windtunnel. It was a very well executed political hypocricy, and I wanted to let everyone else in on my point of view, and hopefully either prove or disprove it with objective facts and evidence.
Is quite obviously an opinion that borders on a conspiracy theory. By following this logic, every banned technology in F1 should simply have been adopted by the competitors, since it brings an advantage. The non-DDD teams could've asked for the ban simply because they saw what's coming - uber-complex new diffuser wars (with the associated increases in downforce) and massive spending on those - and didn't want that. Just like the FIA (or whoever set the rules in those days) saw the massive power of the turbos and decided to ban those, or the dangers of ground-effects.
And in an imaginary scenario where the DDD appeal was accepted, don't you think Toyota, Williams and Brawn would've been sent to the back of the grid for a race or two until they could adapt? That'd leave Renault as 3rd-best team, behind Ferrari and Red Bull (and possibly McMerc - who knows how their development would've gone with a banned DDD), which is better than where the DDD got them.
I don't like to call up on that principle, but Occam's razor seems fitting: What about the possibility that everything is as it seems? Renault didn't like the diffuser, protested it. Realized halfway through that the appeal will be rejected (as are almost all ICA hearings), and started development on that diffuser. Fitted it on their car, and found extra benefits they didn't expect. Plausible?