F1 2020: Red Bull drags Mercedes into cheating scandal

The plot is thickening in the civil war threatening to tear F1 apart with Daniel Ricciardo’s former team questioning the motives of its major rival.

An F1 civil war is brewing.

Red Bull has suggested Mercedes may have a case to answer as Racing Point vows to fight its penalty for using illegal car parts.

Racing Point was fined $AUD660,000 and docked 15 points after its brake ducts were ruled to have been designed by Mercedes.

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Authorities determined they were copied from Mercedes’ 2019 championship-winning car and while Racing Point admits it used the Silver Arrows as inspiration, it denies doing anything illegal.

Despite the sanctions, Racing Point has been allowed to continue using the parts and rivals like Renault and Ferrari are appealing against the leniency of Racing Point’s punishment, arguing it should be harsher.

All the way through this saga Red Bull boss Christian Horner has said the most important thing is clarity over what is and isn’t permitted in F1 when it comes to copying another team’s design.

Horner added if Racing Point is determined to have broken the rules, then Mercedes may also be in trouble if found to have supplied information about its own brake ducts.

“I think the biggest thing for us is that we just want absolute clarity as to what is and what isn’t permissible moving forwards,” Horner said.

“We’ve always complied stringently with the regulations since the constructor rules within the last Concorde (agreement) were made very, very clear.

“So for us it’s that there is a bigger picture to this, it’s not just about brake ducts, it’s about what is philosophically allowed, and what isn’t.

“Regarding Mercedes, I’m sure those questions will get asked, because if the team in question are guilty of receiving, surely the team that has provided has also been in breach of those regulations? That’s something for the FIA.”

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Racing Point is defending itself.

Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko echoed Horner’s comments about wanting more clarity from governing body the FIA.

“This result is not satisfactory for us either, because it does not bring the clarification we had hoped for,” he told Sky Germany. “I hope that this will happen in the appeal process.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is confident Mercedes has done “nothing wrong” and is “happy to go to court” to clear its name should the situation come to that. He also defended Racing Point and hit out at rival teams for ganging up in a “little revolution” against Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll’s team.

“We were surprised in a way (at the punishment) because there is a strong belief from everybody who is involved, all the lawyers that were part of this, that everything was perfectly within the regulations,” Wolff said on the weekend.

Racing Point will appeal against the severity of the sanctions as team boss Otmar Szafnauer told Sky Sports on the weekend the punishment was “bewildering”.

“We need to appeal it because we stayed completely within the regulations, both sporting and technical,” Szafnauer said. “And we need to clear our name.

“We shouldn’t be losing 15 points and we shouldn’t be charged €400,000 ($660,000). We did absolutely nothing wrong.

“We did design it completely ourselves and we manufactured it completely ourselves. We did not get a part from Mercedes, at all.”