Both AlphaTauri and Haas would likely use Racing Point’s model of copying the designs of their respective suppliers if it’s deemed legal by the FIA.
This year, the Silverstone-based outfit has caused controversy by creating a car which is almost identical to last year’s Mercedes by taking photos from the W10 and reproducing each part.
Because of their close technical partnership with Mercedes, however, Renault has launched a protest against Racing Point, claiming their car breaches the regulations on listed parts and even believes they have received drawings of last year’s Silver Arrow.
Should the stewards dismiss their case, McLaren has already warned it could lead Formula 1 to become a “copying championship” and now Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has vindicated those fears.
“We hope that after the FIA decision there will finally be clarity,” the Austrian told Sport1.
“If the Racing Point is legal, we will do the same with AlphaTauri. Then there will be at least four Mercedes, four Red Bulls and maybe up to six Ferraris on the grid next year.”
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Should Red Bull decide to effectively create customer cars for AlphaTauri, it wouldn’t be the first time as the initial Toro Rosso designs were all based on their sister team.
However, asked how they would avoid breaching the same regulations Racing Point are being accused of breaking, Marko replied…
“With the Racing Point model, take a photo of the car from every angle and then reproduce the parts,” he said.
“We believe you could leave that effort out by simply defining what is allowed and what is not.
“[It would also] save our second team money while making it more competitive,” Marko concluded.
Another element that makes Racing Point’s model so attractive, as the Red Bull advisor alluded to, would be the ability to produce a much more competitive car within the new $145m budget cap coming next season.
For a team like Haas, who started this trend by buying in as many non-listed parts as possible from Ferrari when they joined F1 in 2016, this could be a way to adapt should the number of parts a team must self-produce grow in the future.
Team boss Guenther Steiner has said, however, they won’t be coping Racing Point’s approach, for now.
“No – for sure it’s an opportunity, but we don’t want to do that [at] the moment,” he was quoted by RaceFans.
“Because that again means we would need to invest money in it [manufacturing] and now is the wrong time to invest money because this was a very bad financial year for us. So to invest money now, we can just not do it.
“So our business model works, we are pretty happy with it. Maybe we just need to do a little bit more of it, like Racing Point and Mercedes are doing.”