Earlier this year, ahead of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff alleged that one of their rivals had been scanning the team’s cars with a 3D camera.
“We saw last year on a few occasions, one of our main competitors with a 3D camera – that is quite a thing, you need to have it on your shoulders – scanning our cars. In the garage and outside of the garage,” Wolff said.
READ: Schumacher Backs Vettel To Excel At Aston Martin
He made the accusation amid the Racing Point copygate saga, which has since been put to bed after all concerned parties withdrew their appeals.
Now, the team principals of Ferrari and Red Bull have both denied that they have scanned the Mercedes W11 on any occasion.
“Looking at the similarity between the Racing Point and Toto’s car this year I can only assume it must have been Racing Point,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said.
“I don’t know what Toto’s referring to there but yeah, no idea I’m afraid, certainly not us.”
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto also had “no idea” of what Wolff was referring to.
“Honestly, no idea. I’ve no idea if someone was scanning their car. Certainly, it was not us.”
Continuing, Binotto said he doesn’t see any issue with scanning and taking pictures of rivals’ cars, so long as the data isn’t used to reverse engineer an entire car.
“I think that taking pictures, scanning, I do not see any way, anyhow a problem with it.
“I think what is wrong eventually is to do reverse engineering of an entire car.”
Read the latest Formula 1 News
Enjoyed reading this article? Consider sharing it: