09/08/2020
NEWS STORY
As the whole 'duct-gate' issue continues to dominate the headlines and divide the paddock, an emotional Szafnauer stated the team's case, claiming that the purchase of brake ducts earlier this year were "spares", while pointing to the technical relationships between Haas and Ferrari and AlphaTauri and Red Bull.
"If you read the rules, the new sporting regulations don't apply until 24 hours before the first practice session of the championship," he said, referring to the brake ducts his team bought from Mercedes in early January. "So the reason we got those parts in was we were unsure if the parts that we designed and manufactured for this year were going to be manufactured in time for winter testing for February. So we received those parts as spares or parts to run in winter testing.
"As it turned out," he continued, "we didn't need them at all and our parts made it. "We ran a big part of the rear brake duct that is on this year's car from Singapore last year. However, you can't do the whole thing because it is a different upright, but we ran a significant part of it last year.
"But just so you understand, there is no rule, sporting or technical, that says you have to run them in the year before.
"We have 886 unique drawings for these brake ducts and if you look at the regulations, the regulations state they have to be your design," he continued. "We designed the whole thing ourselves.
"However, the stewards are saying, 'yes but the start of your design is saying you looked at a Mercedes brake duct and started with it', but you have to remember that in 2019 they were not listed parts.
"So you have got to ask yourself, if we started with a Mercedes design and then designed it ourselves, where did Haas start with their brake ducts and where did AlphaTauri start with their brake ducts?
"As a matter of fact, there are other teams here, including Haas, who have probably never run a brake duct of their own design, it is probably come from Ferrari, and the AlphaTauri/Toro Rosso ones have always come from Red Bull.
"The thing is, once you learn something on an unlisted part in 2019 or, in our case, in 2018 when we got the information it was legal, and you can't unlearn that... you can't unlearn that.
"We need to appeal it because we stayed within the regulations," he explained, "both sporting and technical and we need to clear our name. We should not be losing 15 points and we should not be charged 400,000 Euros when we have done absolutely nothing wrong.
"It is unprecedented that last year, this part could be supplied by any team for you and this year you have to design it yourself. We did design it ourselves and we manufactured it completely ourselves. We should not forget we did not get a part from Mercedes at all. We did not shortcut the process, we did not gain any manufacturing time, we did not gain any money buy buying parts.
"Formula 1 is all about exploiting the regulations to the limit," he added. "Just because we did a good job and have a competitive car, it does not mean we have done anything wrong.
"The real conundrum is that people are looking at our car and saying 'you copied the Mercedes' or 'you have copied more than we would have copied', well unfortunately copying is what Formula 1 is completely based on.
"I don't know what the appeal process will uncover," he concluded, "but the more you dig the better off we are, because then the judges will understand how we got to this car, these brake ducts and they will overlay the regulations and see that we are well within all the regulations for what the car is and what the process was."
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