Racing Point RP20

[rohan]

Racing Point has been found to be cheats. They should have been thrown out of the whole season - there is clear precedent for this (cf Tyrrell in 1984).

I hope Renault wins their appeal against the unduly lenient punishment given to RP.

Didn't Tyrrell actively cheat by making their cars much lighter than the minimum? That's hardly comparable.

It's completely comparable - both teams were found to be running components they shouldn't have been. Hence, complete disqualification is the precedent that has already been set.

This isn't a difficult issue.

[subcritical71]

Racing Point has been found to be cheats. They should have been thrown out of the whole season - there is clear precedent for this (cf Tyrrell in 1984).

I hope Renault wins their appeal against the unduly lenient punishment given to RP.

Didn't Tyrrell actively cheat by making their cars much lighter than the minimum? That's hardly comparable.

It's completely comparable - both teams were found to be running components they shouldn't have been. Hence, complete disqualification is the precedent that has already been set.

This isn't a difficult issue.

So your saying rear brake ducts are not allowed.... they are allowed and they have been so far ruled legal. What was not legal was the designer, which for me is not so clear either. I think RP should appeal this ruling actually. They followed the rules which were established at the time of design. I don’t think there is any regulation which stipulates they have to be run on track for it to be designed. If that were the case then designing a 2021 car in 2020 to prepare for the 2021 rules change would be then illegal.

[strad]

I don't think it's a question of them being faster (from their cheating?) but rather that they didn't design the duct themselves ,per the rules, but copied them.
Which in my mind is just crazy because for the entire history of F1 they have looked at what works and copied it.
Why do you think teams swarm the competitions car every chance they get even taking pictures that can be scanned to get the exact size of various parts?
They have always looked at the competition to see where they might be gaining an advantage.
Remember how Schumacher used to scrutinize all the other cars in parc ferme?

[Peter1919]

I think RP should appeal this ruling actually. They followed the rules which were established at the time of design. I don’t think there is any regulation which stipulates they have to be run on track for it to be designed. If that were the case then designing a 2021 car in 2020 to prepare for the 2021 rules change would be then illegal.

RP would be fools to appeal this rulling. They have basically been allowed to get away with not designing a listed part of their own car. The worse case scenario for them was being disqualified as a constructor from the entire season for failing to design all of the listed parts themselves so they have got off massively lightly compared to that.

[Peter1919]

I don't think it's a question of them being faster (from their cheating?) but rather that they didn't design the duct themselves ,per the rules, but copied them.
Which in my mind is just crazy because for the entire history of F1 they have looked at what works and copied it.
Why do you think teams swarm the competitions car every chance they get even taking pictures that can be scanned to get the exact size of various parts?

But they didn't copy the brake ducts from looking at them and phtographing them etc. They had the damn CAD drawings for them given to them by Merc in 2018/19 when it was perfectly legal for them to do so as brake ducts were not listed parts in 2019. RP didn't use Merc's rear brake ducts design in 2019 as they were designed for a low rake car and didn't work well with RP's higher rake design. So in 2020 when they copied Merc's low rake design they suddeny thought I know where we can get a good design for brake ducts to work well with this design lets use those designs for Merc's 2019 brake ducts we have when they knew full well as they were now a listed part they were supposed to design the brake ducts themselves.

The irony here is they managed to design their own rear brake ducts in 2019 when they didnt have to and then used someone else's design for the rear brake ducts in 2020 when they were supposed to design their own.

[wesley123]

Racing Point has been found to be cheats. They should have been thrown out of the whole season - there is clear precedent for this (cf Tyrrell in 1984).

I hope Renault wins their appeal against the unduly lenient punishment given to RP.

Didn't Tyrrell actively cheat by making their cars much lighter than the minimum? That's hardly comparable.

It's completely comparable - both teams were found to be running components they shouldn't have been. Hence, complete disqualification is the precedent that has already been set.

This isn't a difficult issue.

The issue here is that you're looking at it wrong; The car isn't illegal. Nothing that they run on the car is illegal. Unlike the Tyrrell you mention, the whole car is conform technical regulations. Where they are penalized on are the sporting regulations.

[SmallSoldier]

The ducts are not (were found not to be anyway) illegal, it is the was they were designed that was not legal, so once they are actually finished and fitted they are fully legal. It is strange but all above board.

Not above board... It is illegal not to design your own brake ducts for 2020... It doesn’t matter when or how they source them, they didn’t design them.


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That is why they were fined, but the ducts are considered OK.

The ducts are not considered Ok... They are been allowed to use them under the “how are they going to unlearn what they already know” statement... But they didn’t said that the brakes are ok to be used.

What should have been done is to ask them to redesign the RBD’s and come up with a different enough design of their own for the season... Why they didn’t go in this direction? A lot can be speculated, but the fact that they are been allowed to use them doesn’t mean that they are ok... They wouldn’t have been fined or taken points from them if not.


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[SmallSoldier]

I don't think it's a question of them being faster (from their cheating?) but rather that they didn't design the duct themselves ,per the rules, but copied them.
Which in my mind is just crazy because for the entire history of F1 they have looked at what works and copied it.
Why do you think teams swarm the competitions car every chance they get even taking pictures that can be scanned to get the exact size of various parts?
They have always looked at the competition to see where they might be gaining an advantage.
Remember how Schumacher used to scrutinize all the other cars in parc ferme?

Yes, you can copy what works “unless” it’s a listed part... That’s the big issue here, that the brakes are listed part this season therefore can’t be copied and have to be designed “from scratch” by the teams.


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[restless]

The problem as I see it are not the brake ducts.
Its the whole car.
Renault protested the ducts, because they saw chance to win a protest on them.
But it seems almost anyone in paddock thinks that is just the tip of the iceberg of illegaly copy-cat - its just that other teams can't prove. The fact that much more of the chassis is copied.

[Blackout]

The nose is suspect IMO... I heard Merc struggled to pass the crash tests and homologate it, but it seems RP didnt struggle as much... Got any infos about this?

[Blackout]

Didn't Tyrrell actively cheat by making their cars much lighter than the minimum? That's hardly comparable.

It's completely comparable - both teams were found to be running components they shouldn't have been. Hence, complete disqualification is the precedent that has already been set.

This isn't a difficult issue.

The issue here is that you're looking at it wrong; The car isn't illegal. Nothing that they run on the car is illegal. Unlike the Tyrrell you mention, the whole car is conform technical regulations. Where they are penalized on are the sporting regulations.

The RP is illegal regarding the sporting regulations: it is competing with parts that havnt been designed by RP (rear BD). To become legal, they must replace those parts with RRP-designed parts.

[jjn9128]

Okay it's very simple.

• Last season brake ducts were non-listed parts

• Last season Racing point received CAD for front and rear brake ducts from Mercedes - legally

• RP did use the Merc front brake ducts on their car last year

• Last season RP chose not to run the rear brake ducts because their rake strategy clashed with Merc

• This year brake ducts became listed parts

• There was also a small change to the front brake duct regulation

• RP changed the front duct to accommodate the rule change - the FIA does not reasonably expect them to change all the aero surfaces of the duct too much from last year and accepts this as their part - called "grandfathering"

• However, they did not run the Merc rear ducts last year

• Racing point decided to copy the whole Merc car this year - the FIA accepts this was done by reverse engineering from photographs which is legal - though in this case in extremis

• Part of this was copying the low rake concept which meant they could now use the Merc rear brake ducts

• The FIA does not accept the grandfathering arguement with the rear ducts as they are "new" for this year - despite being legally received last year and slightly altered the FIA does not accept this definition of "design"

• The car fully comply's with the technical regulations so this breach is one of sporting regulations which says teams must own the IP of listed parts

• Disqualification is not possible because of this so they've lost their constructors points and received a fine

Where it becomes tricky is that they have been declared to have been "designed" illegally so why they've not lost all points for every race they have and will used them for, or been forced to change them? It seems the FIA is on a cost cutting kick so feel forcing them to design new ducts is prohibitively expensive.

On the other hand RP procured the designs legally and changed them slightly, albeit by reverse engineering the CAD. This is a type of "design", which the FIA said was a very narrow definition. However, it's very easy to see the arguement that it is therefor by definition a different part - even if the definition of design is narrow it's still design.

I can see Racing Point appealing, because I can see their arguement (I can also see the counter arguement). In my opinion the issue is not with what Racing Point did, more the FIAs wording and handling of the rule change of the listed parts. Which the FIA seem to concede and I think is why the penalty is lenient. The FIA have accepted it's their failing so are treating this like a warning that going forward this will be illegal - kinda like one of their famous technical directives. However, on the flip side of this is that in this case what Racing Point did was fine because the FIA failed to fully cover this eventuality in the rules. You can't retroactively apply punishment for rules not yet defined.

[siskue2005]

The nose is suspect IMO... I heard Merc struggled to pass the crash tests and homologate it, but it seems RP didnt struggle as much... Got any infos about this?

Could you post a link for merc struggling to pass crash test with their 2019 car?
AFAIK it was not in their 2019 car, in fact it was in 2017

Which is this nose, and not at all similar to their 2019 nose
https://maxf1.net/en/mercedes-new-nose- ... rash-test/

[subcritical71]

Okay it's very simple.

• Last season brake ducts were non-listed parts

• Last season Racing point received CAD for front and rear brake ducts from Mercedes - legally

• RP did use the Merc front brake ducts on their car last year

• Last season RP chose not to run the rear brake ducts because their rake strategy clashed with Merc

• This year brake ducts became listed parts

• There was also a small change to the front brake duct regulation

• RP changed the front duct to accommodate the rule change - the FIA does not reasonably expect them to change all the aero surfaces of the duct too much from last year and accepts this as their part - called "grandfathering"

• However, they did not run the Merc rear ducts last year

• Racing point decided to copy the whole Merc car this year - the FIA accepts this was done by reverse engineering from photographs which is legal - though in this case in extremis

• Part of this was copying the low rake concept which meant they could now use the Merc rear brake ducts

• The FIA does not accept the grandfathering arguement with the rear ducts as they are "new" for this year - despite being legally received last year and slightly altered the FIA does not accept this definition of "design"

• The car fully comply's with the technical regulations so this breach is one of sporting regulations which says teams must own the IP of listed parts

• Disqualification is not possible because of this so they've lost their constructors points and received a fine

Where it becomes tricky is that they have been declared to have been "designed" illegally so why they've not lost all points for every race they have and will used them for, or been forced to change them? It seems the FIA is on a cost cutting kick so feel forcing them to design new ducts is prohibitively expensive.

On the other hand RP procured the designs legally and changed them slightly, albeit by reverse engineering the CAD. This is a type of "design", which the FIA said was a very narrow definition. However, it's very easy to see the arguement that it is therefor by definition a different part - even if the definition of design is narrow it's still design.

I can see Racing Point appealing, because I can see their arguement (I can also see the counter arguement). In my opinion the issue is not with what Racing Point did, more the FIAs wording and handling of the rule change of the listed parts. Which the FIA seem to concede and I think is why the penalty is lenient. The FIA have accepted it's their failing so are treating this like a warning that going forward this will be illegal - kinda like one of their famous technical directives. However, on the flip side of this is that in this case what Racing Point did was fine because the FIA failed to fully cover this eventuality in the rules. You can't retroactively apply punishment for rules not yet defined.

Very well written! This is how I interpret the proceedings so far also. I see RP have now appealed. I do think they have a good chance on that appeal but it could still go badly for them. If they loose this appeal I believe it’s only time before the rest of the car is proven illegal. If they win the appeal the clone will continue to race the rest of the year without further protest. A lot riding on this decision for RP.

[holeindalip]

The nose is suspect IMO... I heard Merc struggled to pass the crash tests and homologate it, but it seems RP didnt struggle as much... Got any infos about this?

Could you post a link for merc struggling to pass crash test with their 2019 car?
AFAIK it was not in their 2019 car, in fact it was in 2017
https://maxf1.net/wp-content/uploads/20 ... jpg?x78659
Which is this nose, and not at all similar to their 2019 nose
https://maxf1.net/en/mercedes-new-nose- ... rash-test/

I think he’s talking about the slim nose in general and it’s very hard to pass the crash tests, it’s not all that hard to believe though torro rosso/ alpha Tauri did it a few years ago....