FIA needs to be all over rivals from F1 teams colluding: Alpine after 'Pink Mercedes' saga

The Alpine team is hoping that FIA will ensure that the rival teams do not collaborate over the F1 2022 car designs after Mercedes F1 allegedly helped Racing Point (now Aston Martin F1) in the former season. Last year, Racing Point caused huge controversy as it developed a car that looked like Mercedes from 2019. Some fans also cited the team as the 'Pink Mercedes' team.

Alpine expects FIA to prevent rival teams from collaborating 

Alpine F1 executive director Marcin Budkowski said that his team hopes the FIA will be 'all over' rival teams if they collaborate on the F1 2022 car designs. Budkowski said, "Clearly going into 2022, a massive change in regulations, big development slope, lots of performance being gained on these cars, a very green fresh set of regulations, the benefits you can get from collaboration, whether it's legal or less so, are massive. And if there's a year where these kinds of collaborations can pay off, it's this year, for 2022. So clearly, if there's a year where we expect the FIA to be really all over it, it's this year."

Alpine concerned about repeat of Mercedes-Racing Point saga

When asked if Alpine was concerned that a repeat of the Racing Point saga would take place, Budkowski said it was difficult to answer but acknowledged that there were reasons for concern. The Alpine executive director said, "I don't know what's going on in other people's factories, and I don't know what level of scrutiny the FIA is putting on this. Us as an independent team, obviously we don't come under the scrutiny of sharing anything with our competitors, because it would be against our own interests."

Budkowski added, "The Formula 1 I think we'd all like to see is 10 teams or 11, or 12, in the future, that just fight each other mercilessly and are just there for their own sporting success. And from the moment that teams have a common interest in exchanging information, that's a problem, because it shouldn't be the case, you shouldn't be helping your competitors. So, there's a concern there, but I can't say how much. I'm not going to accuse people because effectively I don't know. And I hope that there is nothing happening." Last season Racing Point faced a 15 constructor points penalty and was also fined 400,000 euro for allegedly retrieving data from Mercedes F1 to produce an excellent engine."

(Image Credits: W1F1 official, Mercedes F1, F1/Twitter)