28/11/2018
NEWS STORY
As the second and final day of testing got underway at Yas Marina today, Haas announced that it will not be appealing the decision of the stewards at the weekend, who dismissed the American outfit's protest of Racing Point Force India's cars.
"Haas F1 Team has elected not to appeal the decision of the FIA Stewards (UAE Document 20 - Haas Protest Decision) following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Nov. 22-25 2018," read the brief announcement made via social media.
However, while the protest, supposedly about the intellectual property origins of the Racing Point cars is out of the way, the fun and games can begin.
In their decision statement, on a number of occasions the stewards clearly identified Racing Point Force India as a "new team", racing under an entirely new (UK) licence as opposed to the Indian licence Force India had raced under.
And it is this clarification that Racing Point Force India is a new team that is central to the American team's arguments over the Column 1 prize money, which Haas argued Racing Point was not entitled to as it is a new team and should be treated in exactly the same way as Haas when it entered the sport in 2016.
In that argument however, in a situation not helped by F1's management, it was claimed that Racing Point was merely a 'continuation' of Force India and was therefore entitled to the prize money.
Not so, according to the Abu Dhabi stewards.
Unwilling to say much on the matter at the weekend, Haas team boss insisted that the reasoning behind the protest was "equality for all the teams".
While some thought the protest was in reaction to Force India's previous claims over Haas' relationship with Ferrari, it was in fact a smokescreen as the American team sought definitive clarity on Racing Point's status.
Check out our Wednesday gallery from the Yas Marina test, here.