Racing Point admitted that they had copied the Mercedes. The reasoning, they said, was that they were finding with their previous car concept - based on Red Bull's design approach - that their development was slowing down.
They pointed out that they already bought the engine, gearbox and various aspects of the suspension from Mercedes, so why not copy that car instead, especially as it had won the past six world championships?
The issue was that it meant a complete change of car philosophy - Mercedes use a low-rake approach in contrast to Red Bull's high rake, meaning the Mercedes runs flatter front to back in contrast to the Red Bull's nose-down, rear-up stance. This means different airflow structures around the car.
"From the outside, it probably looks like 'they have just copied a Mercedes'," said technical director Andrew Green. "But to copy something means nothing unless you understand what you are doing, otherwise it doesn't work. Unless you understand the philosophy behind every single component and what it's doing, you'll never get it to work.
"It was putting our faith in the aerodynamics team to say: 'Go and understand this and let's see if we can replicate it. Is it better than what we are currently doing? We will find out.' I'm very proud of what the team have done."
Both Green and team principal Otmar Szafnauer were adamant that the car was their own work, with no help from Mercedes, despite the commercial and technical relationship between the two. F1 rules define 'listed parts' that teams have design themselves, which are the chassis and aerodynamic surfaces, and this had been complied with, they said.
...
The question at the heart of the Racing Point controversy is this - philosophically, if a team produces an effective facsimile of another car, does that constitute it being "designed by" them, as the rules dictate?
McLaren and Renault are not happy about this situation. They are the teams that have most to lose as the ones who finished fourth and fifth last year, and Racing Point's likely closest rivals, and they feel the FIA should be doing more to prevent it occurring.
