My opinion doesn't count more than yours anyway; we are just onlookers in this. But try to engage legal proceeding for exactly the same issue on 3 different weeks , and tell me the response of the courts!!! This is not done; it's called vexatory action, and may bring the court to completely disregard your complain.
Let me guess: If their car wasn't a turd and they'd be chasing after MB and RB only, they couldn't have cared less.
Ferrari didn't exactly protest, they asked for clarification. I guess that's still more than McLaren who are afraid to upset their future engine manufacturer (Mercedes). Renault, Ferrari and McLaren are all against what RP is doing, the most interesting part is that the teams are threatening with the commercial agreement. Will be interesting to see how much FIA are willing to risk it, and how much they are in AMG's pocket.
Im not sure. A small slap says - go and clone. It will devalue the creative end of what teams do for themselves and the series reputation as one that values those who strive for themselves. I just hope its an honest look at the situation.
Seriously, who believes in this "clone thing", or that you can "copy from pictures"? This is just another retard story created by journalists.
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/racing-point-kopier-streit-bremshutzen-bei-mercedes-gekauft/ Racing Point admits it's bought the parts. Tombazis ''forgot'' to inspect certain parts Read full article and pay particular attention to what Steiner says.
TURN IN THE RACING POINT DISPUTE Brake vents on the table The verdict in the brake ventilation dispute between Racing Point and Renault is expected this week. As it became known in the meantime, Racing Point had the brake covers of the 2019 Mercedes as a template in the house. And the FIA knew about it. D ie F1 eagerly awaited the verdict of the stewards in the matter against Racing Renault Point. Renault had protested the brake vents on the two Racing Point RP20s in the last three races. Renault said that the components were copied with unauthorized outside help. The model was the Mercedes W10 from the previous year. That was not the only similarity between the current Racing Point and the old Mercedes. The whole car looks like a pink painted copy of the 2019 world champion car. Renault picked the brake vents for two reasons. First of all, the French believe that this detail is the easiest to prove allegations of outside help. Secondly, the brake shafts are best suited to push a topic that Renault believes threatens the whole of Formula One. Because it could divide the field into a few great designers and their copies. No matter how the argument ends. The case will likely go to the FIA Court of Appeals after the first judgment. And then the general question will be how much copy is allowed and how much is not. Purchased from Mercedes The hearing before the stewards is scheduled for this week. Racing Point had three weeks to prove otherwise. Chief Technology Officer Andy Green confirmed that the FIA received the documentary a week before the England GP and the stewards on Thursday before the first Silverstone race. The longtime Formula 1 engineer is confident of victory: "The protest should be dismissed. We followed the rules and used drawings and data to show why the brake vents of the two cars are so similar." Green mentions that the brake shafts of the 2019 Mercedes were acquired legally last year. At the time, they were not yet part of the so-called "listed parts", that is, the components that had to be constructed by yourself. This conceded that the air ducts, which are much more than just a tool for cooling the brakes, served very well as a template for the 886 individual drawings that were created in the design office in Silverstone. The 55-year-old Englishman also reveals that the FIA inspectors examined the brake ventilation when they inspected the RP20 in February and also received the details required for the construction of the parts. "Nikolas must have forgotten that," said Green, addressing FIA technology director Nikolas Tombazis, who was not present at the factory inspection himself. Warning to Haas It sounds like it confirms Renault's suspicions. The Racing Point engineers copied the brake ventilation of the Mercedes W10 not only on the basis of photos. Officially, the original parts were on the table. The crux of the matter is that the brake vents only changed their status in the classification of the components on January 1, 2020. The teams have known about it since July 2019. It is more a legal than a sports policy question how this special case should be assessed. Racing Point used knowledge of a detail for its 2020 car that was legally available until December 31, 2019. In theory, Mercedes could have sold its brake vents to everyone up to this point. As this is a 2019 component, the 2019 regulations should also apply. In addition, the construction plans for the corresponding parts were put on paper last year. Nikolas Tombazis threw the point around: "Even if Racing Point had thrown any drawings or data in the trash at the end of December, the knowledge previously acquired would still be in the minds of the engineers." Practice causes resentment among the competition. Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says that after the brake ventilation status changed, he had received a warning from the FIA not to request information from Ferrari under any circumstances. Aid would have been prohibited even in 2019. "I hired three engineers and had tools built to develop and build our own brake vents," explains Steiner. The difference to Racing Point is that Haas buys its parts from the current Ferrari. Had he received documents about the 2020 Ferrari's brake covers in 2019, it would have been clearly illegal. While there may be a plausible explanation for the brake ventilation, more and more engineers doubt that Racing Point was able to reproduce the entire car so faithfully using photos. McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl is also surprised: "This is not possible with photos taken in the pit lane or in the Parc Fermé. You will need a scan." In the paddock it is said that Renault received a tip from ex-Racing Point employees. They changed camp in winter. If they exist, they will likely only play the key witnesses before an appeals court with civil judges.
The discussion about the RP20 continued over the course of the British Grand Prix, with McLaren another team not particularly happy with Racing Point’s sudden change in philosophy. “The majority of teams don’t like what Racing Point is doing,” McLaren boss Zak Brown is quoted by The Race. “Whether it’s legal or not is up to the FIA to decide, but it’s outside the spirit of what F1 is. “There’s always been a degree of copying but they have effectively admitted they replicated someone else’s car. “The majority of us agree that’s not what F1 should be so we need to write regulations reflecting that.”
Personally I’m not convinced about this protest. Arguing that it goes against the fundamental principle of unique designs for each team is a bit pointless when the entire F1 design formula is so restrictive anyway. There is hardly any room for innovation left in the sport so why should teams invest hundreds of millions in design when it only yields marginal gains for the second tier teams? Mostly, this is about sour grapes from two factory teams (Renault and Ferrari) who have spent a shed load of cash on inventing an inferior car to a mid pack team. Get over it - you haven’t done a good enough job.
I think you got that right in a nutshell. It's no more than chicanery. It shows you the depth of nit-picking some people have reached.
And what exactly has Tracing Point invented? How to use the newest copy machine? The problem here is that RP hasn't done ANY job at all.
No body noticed how much the Racing Point masks look like the design that Mercedes uses for their protective masks? Seriously, where does this Xeroxing crap end! In the end, its not what should be happening in F1 but if it is within the rules as they are written, well, that sucks. The regs need to be more prescriptive in this area.
Hammer meets nail The official discussion is about the design of the brake vents. While important who actually believes that this part alone gets the car so many seconds ahead of the competition per lap? Even if they were forced to remove that part and use their own design I doubt it would change much in regards to their competitiveness. If it were that easy then why doesn't everybody use "the newest copy machine"? It is not that easy obviously, RP have done a thorough job cloning the Merc. That by itself is a big effort and not without risks: not just legally as we see now but also who's to say that last year's Merc is good enough for a win this year? When the FW07 was copied by the competition in the year it almost won the title (odd points regulations made that impossible but it would have won on points alone) and then brought back as a clone the following year it was a midfield car at best. More like the end of the grid. So copying last year's design is not a guarantee to win the following year. And so far RP hasn't won anything other than the ire of two midfield teams.
This is really missing the point. Again. Remember when Ferrari in Malaysia (2000?) were caught with the barge board shadow plate not “shadowing” the projection onto the reference plane by thousands of an inch? The advantage gained was nil but McLaren, the other teams and the press were on about the “rules are the rules.” The only way they got off was by demonstrating that the barge boards were installed at some (unintended) small angle off of vertical. Even that was not good enough for some and the fact there was NO advantage to this—it was a mistake—made no difference to most and would have been illegal if not shown to be a mistake. In this case nobody is saying that RP can’t copy a design from pictures. What the other competitors (the guys who actually design cars and dissect the competition to the point of hiring photographers) are saying is you cannot get the level of fidelity in the physical design but mostly in the performance of a car without more detailed information. So the assumption is that some level of info beyond pictures was supplied - which is illegal and hard to prove. The brake ducts though are easier to argue because they ARE Merc parts (RP said so) and whether these give .001 of a second or not is not the argument. The argument is are they allowed by the rules or not.
Big deal, as I said: So prohibit RP from using the brake ducts and use their own designs. Fine. Won't change much if anything at all of their performance envelope. Case closed. Tempest in a tea pot stirred by two sour grapes teams.
You do realize that if they do what you suggest, RP will be DQ'd at least from 3 of the races so far this season?
I realize that is a possibility. Hopefully it won't come to that. Renault and Ferrari have been caught cheating in the past yet disqualification is very rarely applied. Normally the decision is more like "going forward you can't do this anymore".
