HRT informed the media that they asked FIA to investigate if Caterham illegally benefited back in 2010 using parts that were Force India intellectual property.
Caterham F1 Team fall under HRT radar after a recent court judgement has ruled that during the 2010 Formula1 Championship the Team Lotus now Caterham has gain access to files which “reproduce a substantial part of the corresponding Force India Computer Aided Design [CAD] files for the following parts: the vortex generator, rear brake duct lower element and rear view mirror” ad for this felony Team Lotus was fined 25.000 EUR but the story does not end here and they could face far greater penalty from FIA.
HRT has placed a complaint against Caterham because if FIA finds Caterham punishable HRT could win no less than 26mil USD in prise money by taking over the Caterham position in championship and by doing so according to the Concorde Agreement they will be entitled to that amount of money.
“HRT has made an enquiry to the FIA to review the judgement in respect of the UK High Court civil case against Caterham,” a team spokesperson said. “HRT will take any measures that may be considered appropriate. If there have been any illicit moves that may have been beneficial for some and detrimental for our team, HRT will obviously take a stand against it.”
According to the Schedule Three of The Concorde Agreement the teams are not allowed to use parts if they don;t own the copyrights or the licences to do so. At this point is not known if Team Lotus have used parts using the Force India designs or it just had the CAD files but just being in the possession of the files might be reason enough to breach the rules.
Back in 2007 McLaren was fined 100mil USD by FIA and strip of it’s points in the constructors Championship. The sanction was carried on after McLaren was found in in violation of article 151 c) which states that the teams must not carry out “any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally.”
HRT is interested in these issues because there is a real possibility for Team Lotus to be striped of its position on the Constructors Championship in 2010 making HRT the next beneficiary of the money and considering the amount this could make a huge difference for the Spanish team.
Force India and Marussia are also considering to make complaints over the Caterham infringement however none of this teams will gain a financial benefit since Force India was 7th in 2010 and already collected its share while Marussia will get to be 11th and there is no financial benefit for that place.
Info: ESPN F1, Image: © Caterham F1 Team/LAT Photographic
