Racing Point has confirmed it intends to appeal the 15-point deduction and fine handed by the stewards as the case over their car’s brake ducts rumbles on.
Rather than appeasing concerns on both sides with their decision on Friday, the FIA has only inflamed them and now a total of five teams (Renault, McLaren, Williams, Ferrari and Racing Point) on both sides of the debate have lodged their intention to appeal.
The whole matter revolves around listed and non-listed parts as well as the ability of smaller teams to essentially copy the designs of front-running cars through photography.
In this case, Racing Point was found to be using rear brake ducts on their 2020 car that had predominantly been designed by Mercedes thanks to being given CAD drawings and actual samples of the part, this despite it becoming listed for this season, meaning each team must design and develop their own.
However, the stewards have allowed them to continue using those parts, claiming it is unrealistic to ask Racing Point new ducts based on the knowledge they already have of Mercedes’ parts.
In addition, their verdict also says that only the process of developing the parts was illegal rather than the parts themselves, meaning there are no grounds to request a change.
But their rivals believe this could set a precedent for other teams to flout the rules going forward if the benefits outweigh the subsequent punishment.
“This discrepancy between the sporting and technical [rules], in that you can run what has effectively been deemed an illegal part that shouldn’t have been put on a race car because it was, in effect, copied from another team, to me, that isn’t right,” explained Williams deputy team boss Claire Williams.
“It’s confusing for the fans to have that, to see now that a car that has been in breach of regulations, to still be allowed to run those parts. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me anyway.”
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As for Renault’s continued action against Racing Point, team boss Cyril Abiteboul says it is about trying to end the practice of smaller teams obtaining help from those at the front of the grid.
“There is clearly two elements,” said the Frenchman. “On one side there is confirmation that Racing Point was in breach of the sporting regulation.
“It’s a sporting regulation matter but it’s very much a technical element.
“It’s clear, black and white, that the passing-on of information has been established, the passing-on of parts has been established.
“That is obviously very important because it’s very important to draw a line between what’s acceptable and not between competitors.
“We need to send a very strong signal that this type of information cannot be passed.”
Despite getting off lightly in the mind of their rivals, however, Racing Point continues to maintain their innocence and now wants to clear their name, believing they have a strong case.
“It’s a bit disappointing. We thought we are well within the rules and did absolutely nothing wrong,” team boss Otmar Szafnauer said. “We invited the FIA in March to come and view everything that we did. We had full disclosure.
“Thereafter, they wrote to us and said we were completely compliant. So that’s a bit disappointing. However, we now have to assess the sanction that was given. The FIA have acknowledged the rules of non-listed parts going to listed parts were far from clear and ambiguous and they could be viewed from two different sides.
“The initial thought is that from our perspective, we did nothing wrong so that’s unfair. There’s always two perspectives, I guess. The FIA were the arbiters on this. We now have to discuss with the FIA what is going to happen going forward.”