The FIA believes Renault is likely to launch a second protest against Racing Point following today’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
A protest is already ongoing following last week’s Styrian Grand Prix, where Renault queries the legality of Racing Point’s brake ducts. Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll’s finishing positions in that race remain provisional.The FIA’s head of single seater technical matters, Nikolas Tombazis, said it is “likely” that Renault will continue to protest the Racing Point brake ducts until the investigation by the FIA is complete.
“They have the right to protest other grands prix until this matter is adjudicated,” said Tobazis, “and Racing Point have the right to run with these components or other components, depending on whether they feel confident about winning the case or not.
“If, ultimately, Renault decides to protest every single race, they have the right to do that. And Racing Point, would have that risk to take.
“I think it is likely that we will see, therefore, for formality reasons, protests. It’s potentially likely, it’s Renault’s decision, it’s certainly not our decision or our desire or anybody’s, but I think it is likely we’re going to see protests perhaps until this matter is adjudicated.”
The stewards of each meeting change from race to race. However Tombazis said the FIA will make arrangements for any further protests to be considered by the same stewards who handled Renault’s Styrian Grand Prix protest, to ensure consistency.
“We as FIA don’t want to have a different set of stewards deciding each single case and having like a party of 20 stewards to decide such a case on every single race separately, and to have maybe some stewards believing it is OK in one race and not again another race.
“So what is likely to happen, and we are examining options, is that we will define a set of stewards which will adjudicate this particular topic on any race that will be protested.”
Tombazis said the FIA hopes to rule on Renault’s protest before the next race at Silverstone, appeals notwithstanding.
“If say the Racing Point ducts were found to be not acceptable then obviously they would have to to redesign them and make new ones to a different design.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2020 F1 season
- Pictures: Wrecked chassis from Grosjean’s Bahrain fireball crash to go on display
- Bottas vs Rosberg: Hamilton’s Mercedes team mates compared after 78 races each
- F1 revenues fell by $877 million in Covid-struck 2020 season
- Hamilton and Mercedes finally announce new deal for 2021 season
- F1 audience figures “strong” in 2020 despite dip in television viewers
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
19th July 2020, 8:34
Ok. But what about when the ruling has been released but Renault filed an appeal? Do Renault still had the right to protest on every races before international tribunal that likely could only happen at the end of the year?
What if Renault logged two more protests unrelated to brake duct? Are they have the right to protest three times a race?
Chaitanya
19th July 2020, 8:34
This is getting beyond ridiculous now. 🤦♂️
RAVEEN
19th July 2020, 8:40
Yes racing point might have copied Mercedes, some believe there is some dealing between RP and Mercedes, but Renault should put there head down do their work, lets FIA do the investigation, i feel every team in F1 thinks for itself. So for a constructor team like Renault they should stop whining and look at their own car, F1 is all about copying each other these years. So stop whining Renault and do your work.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
19th July 2020, 9:03
except rp didn’t copy no one. that is the problem. rp, haas and tauri did not copy anything, they and their a teams exploited the rules for what was meant to be the last year of these cars.
SadF1fan
19th July 2020, 9:06
How can you say that Racing Point didn’t copy, when Racing Point admits they have copied…
RAVEEN
19th July 2020, 9:40
I think the ego is playing here, its like tit for tat with respect to Renault, RP went after them last year to get them disqualified last season in a race. they say that they protesting for the goodwill of F1, but i think they are protesting for themselves, A big constructor like them could not take it that a small team is doing better than them.
SadF1fan
19th July 2020, 9:04
I hope Renault wins. I really don’t want F1 to become a Spec series and watching 7 copies of 3 original cars is in essence a spec series.
The FIA and F1 failed spectacularly during and before the hybrid era.
Yaru (@yaru)
19th July 2020, 9:55
Beats only three teams challenging the title (and only one constantly winning) while the midfield battle slog it off.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
19th July 2020, 14:00
You always see convergence of successful designs though. This is a particularly stark example of it but I wouldn’t consider it a spec series even if all cars outwardly resembled the Mercedes.
SadF1fan
19th July 2020, 9:09
Maybe it is about damn time the FIA hires a permanent crew of stewards instead of rotating every single race, like it is some kind of ceremonial job like waving the finishing flag…
Yaru (@yaru)
19th July 2020, 10:01
Yea agree. Seems stupid you can launch the same complaint multiple for the same design.
Just do it once, settle it and be done with it.
Its also stupid that they even have this separate stewards/judges system in the first place. Its not like this was not known, the FIA organizatiin already know ahead of time and cleared it.
If you want to have a system of seperate indepdent judges like stewards, fine but then this should be handed to them earlier and only brought about once. Anything than is specific to a race (like a Neely introduced potential rule breaking upgrade for example) can be brought about to them as the time comes. Not base systems that’s been there since at the beginning of the season.
Allstargp
19th July 2020, 11:00
Agreed. Shockingly poor management skills
Clay
19th July 2020, 9:40
RP has done what dozens of teams have done before – copy a winning car. They copied Red Bull in the past. Lots of teams copied the zero keel of the MP4/25 in 2006. Lots of teams copied Newey’s tight cockpit and raised nose of his March 881. Lots of teams tried to copy the Lotus 79 and Williams FW07. Need I go on?
Until any proof comes out of anything other than the idea of using hundreds, thousands of photos to replicate the ‘19 Mercedes was used to design the RP20, I’m taking Renault’s protest as a case of very sour French grapes.
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2020, 11:28
They didn’t just copy a concept here and there though. The whole car looks almost identical. That clearly is a whole new level of “inspiration”.
Besides, the brake duct is for the most not visible in a normal photo.
mystic one (@mysticus)
19th July 2020, 12:41
@f1osaurus
Same things said about hass too… They were too identical.
RAVEEN
19th July 2020, 13:01
Except Haas was not fast like RP so no body was bothered, am dam sure Renault would not have complained about RP if they were heading the midfield or the RP car was slow and miserable, so sour grapes Renault.
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2020, 16:03
@mysticus True, although I don’t remember that being as blatant. Maybe because the Ferrari design was never that unique anyway. One glance and you recognize the RP design as a Mercedes.
RAVEEN, there were actually penalty of complaints when Haas showed up with their Ferrari clone and they did perform quite decent until both cars stopped on track.
mystic one (@mysticus)
19th July 2020, 16:19
@f1osaurus
uniqueness is part of the sport as well as cloning… i dont know too well what are allowed and what are forbidden in the rules regarding copy/clone of parts… so cant really put too much thought about it as FIA has their own “unique” opinions about running the business… Like allowing cheating and hiding it in plain sight… while penalizing drivers/teams for so much less stuff when others in similar situations does 10x worse
Ninjenius
19th July 2020, 12:15
I didn’t know it was part of the FIA’s responsibilities to provide gossip and speculation.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
19th July 2020, 12:47
Still don’t understand how they duplicated the car this perfectly and suffered no issue with doing so. They built this thing from a photograph and it was immediately fast? Immediately reliable? Drivers immediately dialled into it? Like F1 bangs on about how the aerodynamic philosophies and designs of one car can’t fit another and you can’t just wholesale duplicate another because you don’t know how it all works in unison under the bodywork – the bits we can’t visually see. But that’s exactly what RP say they did? Either that Mercedes is a lot more simple than it looks and the other teams are shockingly stupid or RP knew more about the W10 than a photograph.
If RP didn’t do anything naughty in this design and hit the jackpot in developing this thing even if there’s nothing in the rules that says you explicitly can’t do this it’s obviously very against the spirit of them. And as for ‘sour grapes’, do we really want to see four of the same car? How long until someone with a lot more money and resources (McLaren) does the same thing RP did and then we have even more identical cars?
AliceD (@aliced)
19th July 2020, 14:00
+1
F1 management will have to decide if they want to be F1 or “Mercedes F1”
Clay
19th July 2020, 16:33
This issue is about a team saying publicly “we are copying a Mercedes” and actually making it work. If RP decided to try this strategy early in 2019, taking lots of pics and building models of the W10 through last year, knowing they would
be using the rear end of that car anyway, plus added their own development to the strong concept, why couldn’t they have built such a strong car?
And in terms of uniqueness being an F1 trait – only for the last half of F1 history. Think of customer Ferrari’s, Maseratis, Cooper’s, Brabhams, Marches and Tyrells of the past. Just because one team has been smart and copied a fast car (which has been proved to be part of the DNA of F1 using multiple examples) the idea that F1 is about to become a spec series is uninformed at best and simply stupid at worst. I just hope that RP are telling the truth and the FIA sort this out quickly.