FIA: "Racing Point has gone too far in copying Mercedes"

On Friday morning it became clear that Racing Point broke the rules around copying the car from Mercedes. After protests from Renault in Austria, Hungary and in Great Britain, the FIA recognised the protest of the French team. With this, the FIA wants to send a signal to the other teams that copying parts is not acceptable. Nikolas Tombazis, Head of the single-seaters series of the FIA, explains what steps will now be taken.

"We plan to change some rules in the short term in the 2021 sports regulations that should prevent this kind of event," Tombazis explains to Autosport. "This should discourage teams from copying parts via photos or other means, as Racing Point has done".

"We will still accept that individual parts will be copied in certain parts of the car, but we don't want a car to practically become a copy of another car". What is clear is that Racing Point has crossed the line in copying the car from Mercedes.

"We know that copying parts has been around for a long time in F1, but what Racing Point has done is really one more step. We don't think that Formula 1 should go in that direction. We don't want to have eight or ten copies of Mercedes, that shouldn't be the new normal", concludes Tombazis.