Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes there is a self-centred “little revolution” growing against Racing Point over their 2020 car.
On Friday, the stewards gave the Silverstone-based team a 15-point deduction and 400k Euros fine after upholding three protests from Renault over the legality of their car’s brake ducts.
In a lengthy ruling, they stated their decision that those parts were in breach of the regulations regarding listed parts as they had been predominantly designed by Mercedes, who had supplied drawings and even the ducts themselves to Racing Point for them to analyse and reproduce.
The punishment though didn’t go far enough for most of their midfield rivals with Renault, McLaren and Ferrari all stating their intention to appeal the decision.
“One thing that is important is that it has been clarified that there has been a breach of regulation. I think that is the starting point,” Mattia Binotto said, outlining the position of the Italian team.
“Obviously that is relative to the braking ducts but there is an entire concept behind, which is about copying: are we allowed to copy or not, an entire concept? But the two things need to be split.
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“On the braking duct there is a breach of regulation, that is a fact and it has been clarified. Is the penalty sufficient or not? Again, I think we need to go through carefully the 14 pages,” he added.
“There are 24 hours eventually for an intention of appeal. I think as Ferrari we will be very careful in understanding and deciding what is the next step.”
McLaren went further, calling Racing Point’s argument “BS” and questioned why the parts, despite being declared illegal, are still allowed to be used, even though the FIA had stated it was “unrealistic” to ask the team to change them given the knowledge the team already has.
Leaping to Racing Point’s defence though was Mercedes’ Wolff, who believes their rivals are simply unhappy because of how competitive the so-called ‘Pink Mercedes’ has been.
“We were surprised in a way because there is the strong belief from everybody who is involved, all the lawyers that were part of this that everything was perfectly within the regulations,” Wolff told Sky Sports of the stewards’ decision.
“The tricky thing is that in 2019 those parts were non listed parts and they became listed parts.
“The non-listed parts were supplied in 2019, full stop, that is what the regulations says.
“The FIA wanted to come up with a solution that kind of lets everybody live,” the Austrian then suggested.
“Now Racing Point is pretty upset, they believe they have a strong case and they have lawyers ready to go and appeal.
“On the other side what I see is that there is a group forming, a little revolution in every sense.
“And they are trying to go after Racing Point because I guess they are upset that they haven’t got the performance that Racing Point have.”
