Why action on F1 copying will avoid the worst of both worlds

Formula 1 is unique in many ways, but perhaps none more so now than the fact all its competitors are also constructors. It is unfortunate for engineering creativity that there is no other professional single-seater, open-cockpit, series that does not use standard chassis, but equally with this distinction present it is imperative that an F1 car remains the ultimate racing machine.

There have been many interpretations of this throughout F1's history, and in the 1970s it came to a head as the 'grandee' constructors held the 'garagistes' in contempt. Enzo Ferrari was the definitive constructor and felt the trend of buying a DFV engine from Cosworth and standard gearbox from Hewland and assembling them to a uniquely designed chassis was diluting the expertise he felt should drive the meritocracy of the competition. Indeed, it even went further than this at the time as there were entrants, some of them moderately successful, who bought complete cars.

By the early 1980s the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) found its place alongside FISA (the forerunner of the current FIA) and it was agreed that the approach of the 'garagistes' was acceptable. Even so it took many years and the advent of the Concorde Agreement - the commercial arrangements between F1 and its various entrants - before the definition of a constructor began to be formalised.

Fast forward to the 2009 Concorde Agreement and the concept of listed parts first appears, an attempt to specify just what a team had to hold the intellectual property rights for to be deemed a constructor. Even though I was personally involved in writing that list, by the time it had been through a number of committee meetings it was pretty dysfunctional even if, through gradual evolution, it managed to serve its purpose.

When I joined F1's technical team in 2017 I discussed with Ross Brawn how we would bring some logic to this for the next Concorde Agreement, which should have coincided with a complete new car for 2021. My view was we should define the performance differentiators and then, in effect, standardise many other parts to save costs.

The performance differentiators would be aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics (and hence suspension systems) and the power unit. It was felt that the design of the first two should lie entirely with a team in order for them to claim to be constructors but it was rational to allow engines to be supplied to other teams. This would lead to certain classifications of parts which would be more comprehensive, but equally more logical, than had previously existed.

Unfortunately, many teams felt this too draconian and wanted to continue to buy gearboxes and suspensions, so the (now delayed) 2021 regulations allowed this while still standardising many more parts.

All this is context in which to discuss one of the most controversial and bitter disputes of recent years - that is the wholesale copying by Racing Point of the 2019 Mercedes and presenting it as Racing Point's own entry for 2020.

We can debate all day whether what that team did is right or wrong from a philosophical point of view, but it was clearly perfectly acceptable from a regulatory point of view. The only dispute was around the nuances involved in the fact that brake ducts moved categories from 2019 to 2020, and this gave rivals an opportunity to challenge what had happened.

The current situation is arguably the worst of both worlds: if copying is acceptable, why not go one stage further and allow the purchase of previous seasons' cars?

Copying of other cars is not new. Every team employs professional photographers to take detailed images of rivals' cars which designers and aerodynamicists then pore over to try to understand what the opposition is thinking and where their success may lie. One also sees technical directors wandering around the grid before a race examining the detail of other cars.

Reverse engineering is another matter. There are many ways of doing this. If one had access to another car it is possible to laser-scan it and use software to assemble the cloud of scanned points into accurate surfaces. Of course, it is unlikely that a team could ever get that sort of access to a contemporary car.

Other methods involve 3D photogrammetry where two photographs taken from known locations can be interpreted with knowledge of some scaling, camera positions and lens characteristics to construct a 3D model of the target object.

The method most widely used by teams is to take several simple photographs of a limited area of a car and then import those images into their CAD systems. It doesn't take too much to construct a few overlays which can be combined to give a pretty accurate model of the photographed surfaces. Of course, this does not design the part for you, it only gives the shape, so mechanical engineers still have to determine how to reproduce the component with acceptable stress and stiffness levels and using the appropriate materials.

So, the key question that teams challenging Racing Point are asking is not really whether what happened is legal but whether it is the correct future direction for F1. I think the answer is that it is definitely not desirable as it destroys the mystique associated with the fact that F1 entrants are (meant to be) true constructors.

The current situation is arguably the worst of both worlds: if copying is acceptable, why not go one stage further and allow the purchase of previous seasons' cars?

The FIA will now resolve this by issuing some new regulations, and interpretations of existing regulations, that will limit what level of reverse engineering is acceptable, so to essentially bring it back to human rather than machine interpretation.

I feel this is a correct and pragmatic outcome to a situation that could have fundamentally changed the face of F1 had it continued unchecked.