Hasn't the Racing Point been checked properly? "Didn't focus on that"

For Silverstone we need more clarity about the Racing Point RP20. FIA technology chief Nikolas Tombazis explains why the regulators declared the RP20 legal before the start of the season.

Visit to Silverstone

Tombazis admits that the brake axles had not been checked in Australia before the start of the season. Already during the first tests in Barcelona, the RP20 was nicknamed the 'pink Mercedes'. It was always claimed by Racing Point that only photos were copied and no knowledge of Mercedes was transferred to the Silverstone team.

Tombazis, the responsible head of the FIA, has already visited the team's factory at Silverstone and all that was true when building the RP20. "We heard critical voices from a couple of teams in February and we wanted to investigate this for Australia, so we visited the Racing Point factory", said Tombazis to Motosport-Total.com.

Not everything checked out properly

"We focused on the car and not the brake axles" Tombazis says. Racing Point had a strong argument for the similarities between the RP20 and the Mercedes W10, so the car was declared legal. Indeed, the team voluntarily showed the evidence how it could be that the two cars had so many similarities. The team was allowed to use pictures of the W10 as long as they produced the components themselves.

Renault suggests in their latest protest that Racing Point received information or data from Mercedes. Tombazis emphasizes that this is 'very illegal'. "That would put a heavy burden on Mercedes and Racing Point."