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Racing Point has given notice to FIA of its intention to appeal the verdict in Renault’s protest against it, which ruled that its rear brake ducts were designed illegally.
The Silverstone-based Formula 1 team was deducted 15 points and fined €400,000, a punishment deemed to be, in conjunction with reprimands, sufficient to cover its use of the rear brake ducts for the whole 2020 season.
Speaking yesterday before deciding to go ahead with the appeal process, Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer laid out the factors that were being considered.
“An appeal, for example, would require some further legal assistance from lawyers and it could very be that the lawyers cost you more than the fine so that’s something you’ve got to decide,” said Szafnauer.
“To me, the 15 points that were docked, you’ve got to assess ‘well is that going to matter at the end of the championship?’ In some years it does, in some years it doesn’t so that’s hard to predict. [It’s tight in the midfield] so that could be a yes.
“The last thing is having done absolutely nothing wrong but being in breach of a sporting regulation process, that in itself is also not a positive thing.
“So we should just also consider appealing to clear our name if we did absolutely nothing wrong, we followed the regulations to a tee.
“When you go to appeal you’ve got different judges that will hear the arguments.”
Szafnauer also said he felt frustrated by the verdict given he feels his team did nothing wrong.
“Probably frustration,” he said when asked what the emotion was in reaction.
“The brake duct moved from a non-listed part to a listed part. We didn’t have a relationship with another team as Haas and Toro Rosso do where they were running other brake duct designs forever, Haas I don’t think has ever run a brake duct design that wasn’t Ferrari’s.
“We’ve always designed our own and we started the process of getting some data legally from Mercedes on brake ducts in 2018 before they were even contemplating moving them from non-listed to listed and now we’re in breach of a sporting regulation process that says because we started with some data that we legally obtained from Mercedes we’re in breach – it’s just ridiculous.
“That is the frustration. You look at people like Haas and Toro Rosso who forever have been getting not just data but brake ducts and designs and everything and they are OK and we are not?”
Racing Point argued in its case to the FIA stewards that it had indeed designed the front and rear brake ducts itself based on legally-obtained data obtained from Mercedes, including the CAD model drawings.
But while the stewards approved the front brake duct design process because it had been used on the 2019 Racing Point, “incorporated into the DNA of the RP19”, the rear brake ducts were not used last year because they didn’t fit in with the aerodynamic concept.
WILLIAMS JOINS APPEAL GROUP
Williams has now joined Ferrari, McLaren and Renault in giving notice of its intent to appeal the decision, with all four likely to call for greater sanction.
Deputy team principal Claire Williams said yesterday that she was concerned by the fact Racing Point has been cleared to continue to run rear brake ducts that have been found to be designed illegally.
“I think the one confusing element is this discrepancy between the sporting and technical 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,” said Williams.
“And to me, that isn’t right. 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 doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
“But I also think that there are wider implications on this. If the car is in breach but still allowed to race with those parts… whenever we take our car and the FIA come to us and say that part’s not quite right, you’ve got two races or whatever to rectify it.
“That should be the case in the circumstances, the very fact they are allowed to continue to race has much broader implications on teams further down the grid, when it comes to prize fund money, when it comes to the order of the championship.
“I’m not sure that I agree with that.”
