Andreas Seidl, the Team Principal of the McLaren F1 Team, says there is ‘no point’ in complaining about the way the Racing Point F1 Team has developed their RP20 for the 2020 Formula 1 season, with the Silverstone-based team having worked within the regulations.
Racing Point’s RP20 looks remarkably similar in looks to the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s W10 from their 2019 double championship winning season, but the team did not break any regulations to design their 2020 car.
Seidl says it is not easy to imitate another team’s car just from pictures as everything needs to work with everything else for it to work, and even McLaren will look at following certain design routes if they feel they are worth looking at and developing.
“We all do competitor analysis and follow some routes if we think they look interesting, and if they’re worth looking at from our point, but at the same time it’s simply not that easy,” Seidl is quoted as saying by Crash.net.
“Designing a performing Formula 1 car is a multi-dimensional topic and just trying to copy something from pictures is not that straightforward as it might sound.
“This is why there’s regulations in place which you need to follow, especially when it comes down to what a team has to do themselves, we assume that the co-operation that is there between Racing Point and Mercedes is within these regulations so there’s no point to complain about it.”
FIA need to Police Working Relationships Between Teams in 2021
Whilst accepting what’s happened in 2020, Seidl says it will be important for the FIA, Formula 1’s governing body, to police and manage what information can be shared between teams as new regulations come into place.
Seidl admits there are worries within McLaren that the regulations will be taken advantage of to give the bigger teams more of an advantage by using ‘listed parts’ of a smaller team that may have hit the jackpot in developing something.
“For us it’s more important for us to look at what’s happening for ‘21 regulations and beyond,” said Seidl. “I think it’s even more clear or restricted what is allowed in terms of a working relationship between two teams and for us that’s the most important thing is.
“This is where we are in exchange with FIA also, is it needs to be ensured and the FIA needs to make sure they are on top of this game, that the co-operation between two teams is first of all always within the regulations, and doesn’t allow the big team for example to benefit from things that are happening at a smaller team related to these so called listed parts.
“This is something that we are worried about and that is our focus on the discussions we have with the FIA to make sure this is properly policed as that would obviously go against the regulations.
“It would help, let’s say an, A-team, having a co-operation to go around the regulations to increase their resources beyond the idea of the budget cap and that is the biggest worry for us to be honest.”