Racing Point case ‘strong’, bought ducts in 2019
Racing Points’ brake ducts are similar to that of Mercedes’ because they “purchased the brake ducts” from the Brackley team in 2019, explained Andy Green.
Racing Point is racing under protest these days after Renault lodged one against the pink Mercedes’ brake ducts.
According to Renault, Racing Point “received” drawings from Mercedes making the brake ducts not their own intellectual property.
As of this year all teams have to design their own brake ducts, although a year earlier the ducts were on the list of parts that could be bought.
And, having done just that in 2019, Racing Point say of course their own 2020 ducts are “similar” to Mercedes’.
Prior to the start of this season, the FIA visited Racing Point’s Silverstone factory to look at the car although when Renault protested the ducts at the Styrian GP, the FIA’s head of single-seat technical matters, Nikolas Tombazis, said they had not looked at the ducts.
Green, however, says the FIA representatives did and even commented at the time on the similarity between the Racing Point design and Mercedes’.
He explained why that was.
“The FIA received all the data from our brake ducts in the visit, they did a comparison of the Racing Point brake ducts to the MGP [Mercedes] brake ducts on that day and they commented on it and it was discussed,” Green told The-Race.
“He [Tombazis] wasn’t at that factory visit, there were other of his colleagues, but it was discussed, it was shown, so we weren’t trying to try to hide the brake ducts, they’re all part of the submission that we gave to the FIA.
“They did comment on how similar they were to the Mercedes and we commented on why they were so similar: because we purchased the brake ducts in 2019.”
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Racing Point’s hearing has been scheduled for next week in the build up to the second Silverstone race.
Green is confident Racing Point’s RP20 will be declared legal.
“I think it’s very strong [Racing Point’s case],” said Green.
“Some documents went to the FIA at the weekend and then other things went to the stewards a couple of days ago.
“The lawyers have been working on it intensely over the last week or so. We think that it should be dismissed.
“I think the regulations are quite clear and we’ve made that case quite clear how the regulations are.
“And we can see that we’ve done everything within the regulations. So we don’t think there’s a case to answer.”
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