FIA: No problems for Mercedes when transferring information to Racing Point

General

18 July 2020 at 11:15
  • GPblog.com

According to the FIA, there is 'no indication whatsoever' that Mercedes has illegally forwarded information to Racing Point. Renault protests against the brake lines of the RP20, these would be too similar to those of Mercedes.

Pass on designs

In 2019 the brake lines were not placed on the list of listed parts, but they will be in 2020. This means that it is not illegal for Mercedes to give the designs of the 2019 brake lines and for Racing Point to receive them.

"In this particular case I don't think there will be a huge debate about what happened", says the head of the FIA single seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis according to Motorsport.com.

"I think the debate will be about whether what happened is in breach of the regulations or not. I don't think we need to be detectives. I think we'll need to be more philosophers or lawyers", continues Tombazis.

No problems for Mercedes

Tombazis also says that it wouldn't be a problem for Mercedes if the team shared information about the parts with Racing Point. "I think it has to be differentiated a bit", he says.

"Because if transfer of IP [intellectual property] took place on a listed component that was also listed last year, so if say, Mercedes had given Racing Point the front wing design, which was listed, there's no way that you can ever argue that is acceptable in the regulations."

"If in the investigation it was found that Mercedes passed information on air ducts during 2020, then yes, Mercedes would be implicated, but we don't have any such indications", ends Tombazis.