I think that has some truth but we dont know how 'serious' Mercedes are about pushing this issue........yet
Mercedes literally broke the rules, they sent their 2019 brake ducts in 2020 to RP. I don't care one bit if they were used or not like the FIA tried to claim. You can't share brake ducts from 2020 forward anymore, this is a slam dunk violation of FIA's rules.
Maybe bureaucrat Tombazis can actually go and look at the (or a) car. Probably hasn’t looked at a car since designing them... or during maybe, judging from his results as tech chief. Anyway, probably too busy aiding and abetting Merc with their DAS before shutting it down for next year so not worth anyone’s time to investigate it and trying to get payback from getting canned at Ferrari.
+1 Dodo claims they read and understand the rules yet sends actual hardware to tRP for them to inspect, scan, reverse engineer. Good understanding of the rules, Dodo. Like Brown says, so much for using pictures. What else did they send? I would not be surprised if the ducts came attached to the rest of the car!
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-team-bosses-trade-insults/4851764/?ic_source=home-page-widget&ic_medium=widget&ic_campaign=widget-1 Asked later about his fellow American’s “BS” comment, Szafnauer made his feelings quite clear too: “So Zak Brown, it is BS, because he's not an engineer,” he fired back. “He's got no idea what he's talking about. Zero." “And I'm surprised at how little he knows about the rules of F1. It seems to me he knows more about historic racing than he does about F1." Seems like RP are just asking for a fight at this point.
He went beginning of the year to check on Racing Point’s legality but “somehow” overlooked the brake ducts. Good to see him going from useless at Ferrari to even more useless at the FIA.
I read where he said that also but per Andy Green, Tombazis didn’t even visit: "He [Tombazis] wasn't at that factory visit, there were other of his colleagues, but it was discussed, and it was shown” https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/150990/racing-point-brake-duct-hearing-set-for-next-week More than useless now at the FIA, he’s potentially dangerous as he must have an axe to grind with Ferrari after they canned him.
LOL I have another theory. Toto knows full well the rules (they ****ing wrote half of them). Mercedes hasn't signed concorde yet. They are using this mess to get their way, or threaten to leave the sport not just their team but engines too. Exactly right. Mercedes send the 2019 ducts on January 6th 2020 to RP. In 2019 FIA made clear which products need to be self designed and FIA must know by January 8 2020. I mean...it's rubbing everyone's nose in it. Incredible no? --- Mercedes is very complicited in this. Toto even admitted in an interview that their car was copied, and that it was very obvious who it was. F1 is a sport where billions are spend each year developing cars. So of course 8 out of the 10 teams are upset that 2 teams can conspire and flaunt the rules like this. If they wanted a spec series, join ****ing indycar or something.
Acting like a child with the chocolate that is missing from the shelve. RP have been 'exposed' They know it lol
Zak Brown also said something like “people much smarter than me” told him this story of copying using pictures was nonsense and therefore BS. BTW, I love that Dodo is talking about 3D cameras (not even sure what that is) making this nonsense possible. I imagine that’s what they all told each would make a good story so let’s stick to it. Also find it interesting the fact the author of the story had to specify that both are American. Maybe artistic license to add flourish to the story or maybe trying to distance this story from the location of the teams’ bases.
I have no idea why Mercedes would waste, literally any significant amount of time on a small time customer like RP. This is strange this episode of this involvement. Mercedes could buy and sell RP like with their daily pocket money. RP in the grand scheme do not matter to a large concern like Mercedes. Maybe its time for Toto to move on. If Mercedes board management find this important I wont miss them at all if they leave. Mercedes reputation is at question now with this RP issue in F1 copying.
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/941277/1/f1-doesn-t-want-810-mercedes-ban-copycat-designs-2021 - Yes this is what is needed. No cloning a car. What I have been saying for weeks now. Sorry Papa Stroll. Time to build you own car. Better start hiring those brake duct engineers LOL. Formula 1 wants to ban copycat designs from next season in a bid to stop teams following a similar approach to Racing Point. Following Racing Point’s decision to effectively clone Mercedes 2019 W10 car for this year, concerns have been raised by teams that F1 risks becoming a ‘spec-series’ if a copycat approach is not outlawed. On Friday morning Renault won its protest against the design process behind Racing Point’s brake ducts on its RP20, resulting in the Silverstone-based outfit being docked 15 constructors’ championship points and receiving a €400,000 euro fine. Following the announcement that Racing Point had been guilty of breaching F1’s sporting regulations, the FIA’s head of single-seater matters, Nikolas Tombazis, revealed that there are plans in place to amend the 2021 regulations so that cars cannot be cloned. “We do plan with very short notice to introduce some amendments to the 2021 sporting regulations that will prevent this becoming the norm," said Tombazis. "This will prevent teams from using extensive part of photos to copy whole portions of other cars in the way that Racing Point has done. "We will still accept individual components to be copied in local areas, but we don't want the whole car to be fundamentally a copy of another car. "We will be providing guidance about that, as well as the ruling and the wording itself over the next weeks,” he added. "We want to give a very strong message to teams that they should not be starting doing that now for next year's car, because that will simply not be allowed. "It will be of course accepted that teams, whatever they have now in the 2019/2020 cars, they are not supposed to delete it or start afresh because that is never how it works.” While Tombazis acknowledged that copying is not a new aspect in F1, he stressed the sport does not want to see “eight or 10 Mercedes” cars on the grid next year. "Copying has been taking place in Formula 1 for a long time," he explained. "People take photos and sometimes reverse engineer them and make similar concepts. "In some areas, [they are] even identical concepts or closely identical as other teams. We do not think that this can stop in the future completely. "But what we do think is that Racing Point took this to another level. They clearly decided to apply this philosophy for the whole car. "By doing what I would call a paradigm shift: they actually use a disruption in the process that has been the norm of designing a Formula 1 car in the last 40 years. "So one should not penalise them for that because they were original in deciding to follow this approach. However, we do not think this is what F1 should become. "We don't want next year to have eight or 10 Mercedes or copies of Mercedes on the grid where the main skill becomes how you do this process. We don't want this to become the normal Formula 1."
Ferrari are not allowed continued use of the "illegal" parts whereas RP can continue using their parts. Decent basis for appeal lol.
The brake ducts are tip of the iceberg. Mercedes allowed their car to be copied by another team (their defacto B-Team) and the FIA is allowing it because they're too scared to lose Mercedes.
Even worse, FIA NEVER found anything on the Ferrari, yet installed more sensors. They found something on the RP and allow them to continue....with the illegal part!
Todt has been utterly useless at the helm of the FIA, just taking the money now. Based on the info that seems to be creeping out now both Mercedes and Tracing Point should be in deep water, but we all know hoe the illegal tyre test verdict went. If I was Ferrari now, put the engine back to how it was, and pound round Mugello, Fiorano to get the car competitive.
+1000 just do it ....and if they gtet banned from the season, what do they lose? **** all. Just go nuts.
FIA has been nixxing Ferrari ideas for 3 years now. The engine is just one of many. Mercedes are allowed to use DAS which is a clear violation of the rules. tRacing Point have been found to use illegal parts and are allowed to use them. The FIA are not following their own rules. All teams not MB or tRacing Point should do a symbolic one lap at every race and park their cars until FIA wakes up and fixes this sham.
You have to take into account Williams and also McLaren that will be powered by Mercedes next year That would be 8 cars, almost half the field.
