“It Is Clearly No Secret” – Abiteboul Critical of Racing Point’s Collaboration Model with Mercedes

Technology-sharing partnerships and affiliations have become commonplace in Formula 1 now. Much of it is down to rising costs in the sport and lack of experience from relatively newer teams as well. Therefore constructors, including Mercedes, have to be efficient with their car-building models.

One outfit that always extracts the most performance from its proposed potential is Racing Point. However, they too endured criticism from the F1 community after their brake ducts incident earlier this year.

Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul also touched upon the matter of technical cooperation between F1 teams. He maintains that Racing Point’s model is quite overly dependent on purchases with the Mercedes F1 team.

Racing Point’s model involves buying ‘as much as they can’ from Mercedes, says Abiteboul

Speaking in the pre-race press conference, Abiteboul stated –

“I guess that what is interesting in this press conference is that you have three teams fighting for that third position to a lesser or better degree, but we all have our own models: from Renault being a complete manufacturer building every single thing from the engine to the chassis, every nut and bolt has been designed, manufactured and built by our team, so we are a true constructor.”

Renault were among the teams to voice their discontent over the brake ducts incident and had appealed for greater sanctions to get imposed. Ultimately though, Racing Point got docked 15 Constructors’ points and a monetary fine of €400,000 as part of their final verdict.

“Then you have the other extreme that we have seen this year. It is not a controversy but it is clearly no secret that Racing Point have the model of buying as much as they can from Mercedes,” concluded Abiteboul.

Racing Point and Renault are both in the race for P3 in the Constructors’ standings

With prize money and midfield supremacy rights at stake, the Abu Dhabi GP has greater consequences for both these teams. Racing Point look strong favorites to claim P3 with 194 points, while Renault are in contention with 172 points.

Regardless, the off-track ongoings will serve as motivation for the teams to do better on the track. As we take to the F1 grid one last time in 2020, Renault will certainly have a point to prove against their midfield archrivals.