If I was Williams, I’d be properly pi**ed—and they probably are in their restrained, stiff upper lip and polite way, going from cautious wording of Claire’s quotes yesterday—but nevertheless joined the appeal despite going against another Merc customer team. Here’s Williams—a team with 100 times the historical significance of the pink cars—struggling for survival, paying Merc big money for their engines and proudly adhering to the F1 tradition of designing their own car (do they even use unlisted Merc parts?) seeing their engine supplier favouring the Johnny-come-lately competitor by handing them the design of a championship winning car! All this because an INDIVIDUAL in the Merc team has some financial interest in the pink car team.
Williams has lost any relevance in F1 now, and their woes are self-inflicted. If Frank Williams has been a bit clever, he would probably sold his team to Lawrence Stroll a few years back. Now they are desperate for investors ... Toto Wolff had a 15% stake in Williams prior to taking over the Mercedes-AMG team, and Suzi Wolff was "test driver" there. Wolff sold his shares probably because Frank Williams wouldn't entertain a buy-out. Now he has invested in Racing Point where Lawrence Stroll is welcoming him; who can blame him for that?
Nope the buck is the paper under the 'Loonie' coin which is only worth about 75 cents of the 'buck' in reality... Image Unavailable, Please Login The real irony is a second hand MB in the hands of an unwanted driver is faster than all the high priced talent in and out of the car that Italy is offering as their effort.
Faster than Red Bull and Ferrari! But this qualifying session tells what a shame it was to allow Hulkenburg leave F1 in the first place. And it also shows that Perez is not quite where he needs to be.
Id like to see these teams do something to be honest. The Clone point issue has gone too far and the ruling clearly is not what most of the field think is good. Well said. Mercedes are not exactly gaining good press this week. When one looks at the Clone Point cheat car, we dont see a competitor just a cheap way to move up the grid. Sure its nice for them but it smells and next year it might not be a legal car. The FIA can tie Cheat Point up in court for a nice long expensive time. No loss to me if that happens. Build a car and compete. Challenge those around you and create a winner. Cheat Point has really brought this on themselves and appears somehow Mercedes have been a subtle 'enabler' of this issue. With so little competition in F1, seeing Mercedes be dragged into this with Toto's big mouth is actually fun for me. He knows better and should be better.
Guess this was driving both Toto and Cheat Point managements anger was this from the FIA LOL -- https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/151201/stewards-wrong-in-racing-point-tracing-paper-claim Otmar Szafnauer says the FIA stewards were "wrong" to compare Racing Point's approach in designing the brake ducts for its Formula 1 car to "using tracing paper". The FIA ruled on Friday that Racing Point had breached the sporting regulations in the design process of the brake ducts on its RP20 car, resulting in a 15-point penalty and a €400,000 fine. But the decision has sparked anger throughout the paddock on both sides of the case, with five intentions to appeal being lodged with the FIA. Racing Point has long defended its design approach for the RP20 car, stressing it has remained within the regulations despite aiming to follow the concept of last year's title-winning Mercedes W10 car. The stewards' ruling said Racing Point had "copied the shapes and dimensions of the Mercedes CAD models of the brake ducts into a new CAD model", and compared the process to "using tracing paper to copy a shape or drawing."
If and it is a big if the "Hulk" was to finish on the podium tomorrow it would break a 177 race jinx for him.
If Racing Point was to win a race, Renault would ask for its disqualification anyway. And the other teams smell blood too.
Statement from Lawrence Stroll. https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1292419567327809536/vid/1280x720/eWBCnhQIw4ZkaEL2.mp4?tag=13 I know the reason this guys says he usually doesn't give interviews: extremely short temper.
A whole raft of stories on this in Autosport, including threats by tRP to “do everything available to prove innocence”, i.e., lawyers despite their indecision on this in prior days. The press is smelling blood and asking questions. tRP should consider letting their lawyers do the talking because the more they say the more they incriminate themselves. Couple of things from the following story are 1/ Otmar—who claims to have read the rules—was already proven wrong on a limit date and 2/if Merc provided their brake duct to tRP as “spares” how did they know that these ducts would fit and be functional on the tRP if they didn’t already know that the interface geometry was identical to theirs? https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/151216/racing-point-got-mercedes-brake-ducts-in-january
A billionaire gets angry when he notices he works in an area where there are other billionaires and he can't do whatever the f he wants.
He 'owns' this team only because of a young Mexican's actions to preserve it. Not because of anything he has ever done in F1. Shut it Stroll. Your heritage in F1 is nothing.
I am 100% behind that guy. The culprit here is the FIA, and in particular those who inspected the car and gave the all clear before the season.
Clearly the 'inspection' was cursory, not in depth given the ruling. Im not at all behind Stroll and his operation. They have not been approved for anything. The FIA never issued a full report on the cloned car with an FIA stamp of approval based on a complete and thorough investigation. NOW that there are MULTIPLE protests they just might. Stroll' anger along with his team management are clearly facing much more than they planned. The car will not be legal next year per the FIA and its moves in the press, stating that cloning of entire cars, like DAS, will not be allowed. More to follow on this pink painted cloned soap opera lol.
Indeed. Perez has much more credit to the survival of Force India than Stroll. If I were Haas I would kick both Mag and Gro in the butt and bring in Perez and Hulkenberg.
Too cozy arrangement with FIA I think. Did you see how Dodo accosted Tombazis after the race? Really looked like the behaviour of a boss getting angry at an underling for not following orders. Probably told him “I told you the tire pressures were to high!”
FIA stewards after the race: "The front & rear brake duct assemblies used by RacingPointF1 during qualifying sessions & race of #F170 appear to be the same as the ones used during #StyrianGP, #HungarianGP & #BritishGP." So the #FIA stewards therefore find that RacingPointF1 is in breach of appendix 6 of sporting regulations and order a reprimand for the team, operating car 18 & 27
