Ex-F1 boss claims: I was told Racing Point had a Mercedes wind tunnel model and show car

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Ex-F1 boss claims: I was told Racing Point had a Mercedes wind tunnel model and show car

Former team boss adds another potential layer to the ongoing appeal process

Sam Hall

Tuesday 18 August 2020 10:59 Updated: 19:19

Former Jordan boss Colin Kolles has claimed Racing Point did not design the RP20 but received a 60 per cent scale wind tunnel model of the 2019 car upon which to base its designs.

Racing Point is embroiled in a fight to conclusively prove it designed the RP20 from photographs of the Mercedes W10.

Renault launched a successful protest against the design of the rear brake ducts and Racing Point has appealed this decision as the team believes it did nothing wrong. In the opposite direction, Renault and Ferrari have appealed the sanction as being too lenient.

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Former HRT, Caterham, Jordan and Midland boss Colin Kolles told German Sport 1 he has been informed Mercedes supplied initially a 60 per cent scale wind tunnel model of the W10, and latterly a full-size show car.

Kolles claimed: “You cannot copy a car from photos. It’s not just about the brake ducts. It’s about the whole concept of the car. It was not just copied from photos."

Numerous teams, those that have appealed and also those that have not, are keeping a close eye on the ongoing case as the outcome will set a new precedence for the acceptable boundaries of 'copying' another teams design.

The FIA decision document revealed that on January 6, Racing Point received brake ducts from Mercedes despite the parts being designated a listed part by this date. Both Racing Point and Mercedes claim these parts were to be used as spares only at preseason testing and were not used.

Kolles continued: “[Racing Point did not have] just parts, they also had certain data and they had, so I was told, a 60% wind tunnel model and a [full size] show car as a template, from which parts were scanned and then converted into CAD data. Otherwise the concept could not work.”

Mercedes and Racing Point were contacted for comment but neither party was willing to comment on the matter.

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