Mercedes wants F1 ruling on aerodynamic collusion

“We haven’t launched anything against a particular team”, Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after a ruling was sought from race stewards.

As part of a technical deal between the two outfits, Haas has had access to Ferrari’s wind tunnel and resources, which has raised suspicions that the collaboration may have offered Ferrari an unfair advantage by circumventing the aerodynamic testing restrictions (ATR) placed on all teams.

Mercedes has approached the FIA to clarify rules and regulations regarding bodywork design and wind tunnel testing by incoming competitors, asserting that Ferrari could be gaining unfairly from its technical partnership with the new Haas F1 team.

A restriction on the number of hours the teams are allowed to use their wind tunnels was written into the regulations some years ago in order to reduce costs.

Mercedes wants a clear answer from the FIA about how much teams can collaborate on wind tunnel and CFD work, so it knows how much it can work with a partner from 2016.

A statement from stewards said they would “endeavour to hand down their decision on the specific matter prior to the start of the race on Sunday”.

Although teams have long established relationships with rivals, the new partnership between Ferrari and Haas has been viewed as particularly wide-ranging with the American newcomers taking the Scuderia’s full powertrain and a number of auto parts.

“This is the trigger of reorganising your structure to share ATR [aerodynamic testing restrictions] quota, to collaborate and educate personnel jointly and share infrastructure”, said Wolff.

Have Ferrari found a way round F1’s wind-tunnel rules? The Brackley outfit have recently added backmarkers Manor to their customer engine supply.

“It is understood by Mercedes that other Formula 1 teams may also be considering operating in a similar manner”.

The World Champions, though, deny it has anything specifically do with Ferrari and Haas.

“They all oversee what the others are doing”, Hill said.

“I think there is a lot of policing and double checking going on”.