(T)Racing Point

[kambites]

Mr Pointy said:

There are side-by-side pictures of the ducts in question here:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/racing-point-me...

They do look incredibly similar.

That they look similar doesn't matter. RP could quite legitimately have copied the ducts from photographs as they freely admit they have with the rest of the car and the fact you've dug out those pictures poves that such pictures were available to them. The question is whether the design of the internal parts which cannot be seen are similar.

[Deesee]

Translated Article from AMuS, (in the last 2 mins).

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&amp...

[Piginapoke]

kambites said:

This is just not true. The rules specifically state that for the 2020 cars, the IP for the brake ducts must be solely owned by the manufacturer. As such if it RP's job to make sure that they own the IP behind their 2020 brake ducts; if they don't trust their engineers not to be able to design them because they've seen the Mercedes ones, they should have got different engineers to design them. The very reason Renault chose the brake ducts as the basic for their appeal is that the brake ducts are markedly different between the different teams and they aren't visible from the outside so couldn't reasonably be considered to be in the public domain.

This is basic intellectual property stuff. I've been in the situation in the past where I rightfully have knowledge of another company's product and as such have been bared from working on my own company's competing product in case I inadvertantly pollute our code with their IP.

Ultimately the judgement will come down to "reasonable doubt" in terms of whether any similarities between the designs could realistically be the result of two independent design teams attempting to reach the same goal.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 14th July 10:56

This 100%. If the designs are overly similar, RP is in big trouble under 2020's regulations.

[Deesee]

Meanwhile..

Front and Rear Hass/Ferrari



https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/status/128299514...

Looks like Hass just decided to use this yrs model

[Dr Z]

I find it very strange that RP show such incredible pace in the friday long runs and hide under the bed, come the race. If they've got nothing to hide, why aren't they destroying the midfield with their shiny new car? Who do they think they are fooling? It's ridiculous.

Checo's run last race from P17 to challenging Albon was the kind of pace we expect from their form, but I must admit, I found it strange that he again gets stuck in Albon's gearbox for laps on end. I'm sorry but, it reeked of 'don't make it look too easy now'.

If they've managed to reverse engineer the car that was the class of the field without any help, that is to be applauded. But clearly, none of the teams up and down the pit lane think it is possible.

[kambites]

Dr Z said:

Checo's run last race from P17 to challenging Albon was the kind of pace we expect from their form, but I must admit, I found it strange that he again gets stuck in Albon's gearbox for laps on end. I'm sorry but, it reeked of 'don't make it look too easy now'.

I just assumed they'd inherited the 2019 Merc's problem with lack of downforce in dirty air. Stroll was stuck behind Ricciardo for ages too, despite being clealry MUCH faster.

[Cabinet Enforcer]

kambites said:

Cabinet Enforcer said:

If Racing Point had sight of the Mercedes brake ducts legally in 2019, then the genie is out of the bottle, the Racing Point engineers cannot unsee the design philosophy behind the brake duct and are free to implement their knowledge.

This is just not true. The rules specifically state that for the 2020 cars, the IP for the brake ducts must be solely owned by the manufacturer. As such if it RP's job to make sure that they own the IP behind their 2020 brake ducts; if they don't trust their engineers not to be able to design them because they've seen the Mercedes ones, they should have got different engineers to design them. The very reason Renault chose the brake ducts as the basic for their appeal is that the brake ducts are markedly different between the different teams and they aren't visible from the outside so couldn't reasonably be considered to be in the public domain.

This is basic intellectual property stuff. I've been in the situation in the past where I rightfully have knowledge of another company's product and as such have been bared from working on my own company's competing product in case I inadvertantly pollute our code with their IP.

Ultimately the judgement will come down to "reasonable doubt" in terms of whether any similarities between the designs could realistically be the result of two independent design teams attempting to reach the same goal. What they're looking for is not proof of similarity, there is no rule against two teams having similar components as long as both parties came to that design on their own, but proof of plagerism.

Your code example is not analagous, it's more like in 2020 a company forks it's open source code and goes closed source, then you use knowledge of the 2019 open source code to design your own.

Hypothetically, say a Ferrari engineer came up with a novel aero trick inside the duct to usefully alter turbulence, and this happened back in 2010. Knowledge of this trick slowly perculated throughout the pitlane and by 2019 every team had implemented it and all legally. How in 2020 could you retrospectively apply the IP restriction? How practically could you prove or disprove whether any one team had come up with the idea independently? How long do we expect teams to maintain detailed records of IP transfer on parts which are 'free' just in case they become controlled?

Renault are simply shooting in the dark on this one, and if RP can produce any evidence at all of design evolution, or if RP ran any of this past the FIA last year then I don't see how it can suceed. Of course stewards and the FIA are well known for their consistent and common sense decisions on such matters, so RP are bound to be fine

As you say, it will come down to reasonable doubt and evidence of plagerism, which I think would be very hard to evidence. Even if RP literally bought the moulds for the parts, they could lay the carbon up differently and use differing materials to create something functionally very different to a Mercedes part.

I don't think the argument about internal design holds up particularly well, if it is accepted that using photos to learn from the external shape is fine, then there is only so much variation possible in the internal shape given the constraints of the external one.

I think while battles over IP might prove quite interesting, and could see some fascinating (and likely unintended) consequences if this goes Renault's way, really this is just down to them not liking how the big three are running proxy B teams and it narks them, mainly because their own customer teams have often outperformed them.

[kambites]

It doesn't matter whether the argument holds up because it's not an argument. It's a set of rules implemented and enforced by the sport's governing body. If RP copied the 2019 Mercedes brake ducts they have broken the rules. Whether they had the information to do so legitimately is completely irrelevant.

Nothing is being "applied retrospectively" here. The rules apply to and only to the ownership of the IP used in the design of this year's cars. RP were allowed and are still allowed to see Mercedes' brake duct design (assuming Mercedes concent to it, obviously). What they are not allowed to do is use that information in the design of their own brake ducts.

I'm not saying the rules are remotely sensible, but that's beside the point!

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 14th July 12:38

[LucyP]

I think you both need to read the Autosport article that accurately summarises that actual issues at stake.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/150550/why-racin...

[Cabinet Enforcer]

kambites said:

I'm not saying the rules are remotely sensible, but that's beside the point!

I think we are coming at this from different angles. You're interpreting the rules as written and at face value, which is totally reasonable. I am assuming that the rules were written logically and with the intent to enforce them (big assumption, I know).

If total IP ownership is mandated, then somebody must own the IP to the whole idea of brake ducts, and only one or probably none of the teams can use them at all. Since it is implicit in the regs that all teams will have brake ducts, then there must be a defined difference between prior knowledge and unique IP, in the particular case of parts that change from free to controlled. If that definition is not in the footnotes somewhere then only 2 conclusions are possible.

1. The rules make no sense.

2. The 2019 mercedes ducts, being 'free', are legitimately Racing Points intellectual property.

Both of these things are true until the FIA decides how it is going to enforce its rules.

I will be disappointed if Mercedes have been outright lying about this, they have not left much room for ambiguity in their statements this far.

[kambites]

Strictly speaking I think the rules say that the IP for aerodynamic surfaces must not be owned by another team, rather than they must be owned by the team using them. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to sub-contract aerodynamic component design and, as you say, wouldn't be allowed to use things like wheels. Clearly the idea of wheels or brake ducts is not a piece of IP owned by a competing F1 team, however the internal design of the system is.

Ultimately it's now down to the FIA to examine the pieces in question and decide whether the rules have been broken. Even Racing Point have agreed that had they had used anything other than photographs of things available in the public domain to come up with their designs, they'd have broken the rules.

Personally I suspect the FIA will find no conclusive evidence of such a thing having happened; they may then choose to tweek the rules for next season as hey did with DAS but I can't really see how they could change the rules to ban what RP have done. Teams have always copied exposed bits of each other's designs, all RP have done differently is copy everything they could see rather than a few individual components. Or maybe the FIA will just give up and say "you can copy any elements you like of last year's cars" but that would create its own problems.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 14th July 14:03

[TheDeuce]

I reckon we be very certain that this complaint was expected by Mercedes and TP at some point, and they will have considered every which way the complaint could be based, and what they needed to do to ensure the complaint failed.

It's highly likely after all that these teams armies of lawyers will have considered everything that has and could be bought up in this thread, a hundred things more, and probably months before they even began 'project copy'.

Of course, it's always possible someone has been a bit sloppy and left their team susceptible in some way.. But I highly doubt it.

[blueg33]

This sort of crap is one of the annoyances of F1. Rather than beat others using better design and better drivers, they favour the use of better lawyers!

I recall a few years ago at Le Mans one team had a part failure, another non connected team rather than gloat and maximize their advantage found they had a compatible part and gave that to the team with the failure. No one made a complaint to get them disqualified.

Much more gentlemanly and sporting behavior IMO

[Common Porpoise]

Dr Z said:

I find it very strange that RP show such incredible pace in the friday long runs and hide under the bed, come the race. If they've got nothing to hide, why aren't they destroying the midfield with their shiny new car? Who do they think they are fooling? It's ridiculous.

Checo's run last race from P17 to challenging Albon was the kind of pace we expect from their form, but I must admit, I found it strange that he again gets stuck in Albon's gearbox for laps on end. I'm sorry but, it reeked of 'don't make it look too easy now'.

If they've managed to reverse engineer the car that was the class of the field without any help, that is to be applauded. But clearly, none of the teams up and down the pit lane think it is possible.

that is another feature they have copied from last years' Merc!! known to be fairly useless in dirty air

[ch37]

Dr Z said:

I find it very strange that RP show such incredible pace in the friday long runs and hide under the bed, come the race. If they've got nothing to hide, why aren't they destroying the midfield with their shiny new car? Who do they think they are fooling? It's ridiculous.

Checo's run last race from P17 to challenging Albon was the kind of pace we expect from their form, but I must admit, I found it strange that he again gets stuck in Albon's gearbox for laps on end. I'm sorry but, it reeked of 'don't make it look too easy now'.

Even by conspiracy theory standards that's an absolute peach, there is no way a team is sandbagging in a race just to deflect attention from them. The Merc is pretty much designed to be at the front, it's not inconceivable that the RP is just as rubbish at sticking behind (and therefore trying to pass) a car with broadly similar pace.

[sociopath]

blueg33 said:

This sort of crap is one of the annoyances of F1. Rather than beat others using better design and better drivers, they favour the use of better lawyers!

I recall a few years ago at Le Mans one team had a part failure, another non connected team rather than gloat and maximize their advantage found they had a compatible part and gave that to the team with the failure. No one made a complaint to get them disqualified.

Much more gentlemanly and sporting behavior IMO

but you could say "Rather than beat others using better design and better drivers, they favour the use of someone elses design"

[Dr Z]

ch37 said:

Even by conspiracy theory standards that's an absolute peach, there is no way a team is sandbagging in a race just to deflect attention from them. The Merc is pretty much designed to be at the front, it's not inconceivable that the RP is just as rubbish at sticking behind (and therefore trying to pass) a car with broadly similar pace.

So, RP did such a sterling job of copying the W10 that it even inherited some of its idiosyncrasies? If that isn't evidence of corrupt collusion, then I don't know what is!

My general outlook is a positive one, and I try to (sometimes naively) give people/organisations the benefit of the doubt. However, with F1 I have learned to not have that as my default position.

FWIW, I don't think anything will come of this protest. I believe, RP will show that even if the brake ducts were similar in form, functionally, they will show differences in the flow coming off it compared to the W10. It's expected, the car has been developed more, obviously.

I'm interested in Merc's role in all of this. I have held them in very high regard for the manner they have competed and won through this era. This would bring them down to earth somewhat, in my estimation. I'm sure they are very horrified about my rating of them.

[robbieduncan]

When will the FIA make a decision? Before the race this weekend would seem to be necessary

[blueg33]

sociopath said:

blueg33 said:

This sort of crap is one of the annoyances of F1. Rather than beat others using better design and better drivers, they favour the use of better lawyers!

I recall a few years ago at Le Mans one team had a part failure, another non connected team rather than gloat and maximize their advantage found they had a compatible part and gave that to the team with the failure. No one made a complaint to get them disqualified.

Much more gentlemanly and sporting behavior IMO

but you could say "Rather than beat others using better design and better drivers, they favour the use of someone elses design"

So many elements of the cars are someone else's design copied as closely as they can.

[neverlifted]

Not as fun as the 2007 spygate story.