Racing Point Force India has come under investigation after a protest laid down by their rival Haas with the hearing set for the weekend in Abu Dhabi.
A late season drama has unfolded at Yas Marina Circuit with Haas protesting against Force India as per the FIA document. The release though doesn’t mention the reason for the protest made by Haas.
The teams are set to meet the FIA on Friday morning of the Abu Dhabi GP weekend. While no particular reason has been given, it is reported that Haas wants clear answers on the team running the VJM11 post the team’s buyout.
Force India went into administration during Hungarian GP and were bailed out by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll as a brand new team. Although all their constructors’ points were taken away, the drivers kept their points and the drove the same cars.
The FIA has a regulation that a new team has to own the designs they are using but in Force India’s case, they inherited it from its previous team. The off-track fight between Haas and Force India has been the case in 2018 season.
Haas is the only team which hasn’t agreed for Force India to get their last year’s prize money of finishing fourth with all the other teams fine with the decision. The American team recently were also embroiled in a case with Renault.
It lost the appeal which more or less settled its constructors’ position to fifth, losing out to Renault in the end. The FIA’s document states: “Team representatives are required to report to the Stewards at 11:00 (local time) on the 23rd November 2018 in relation to the following: Protest by Haas F1 Team against cars 11 & 31.”
As alluded, Haas is set to finish fifth this year with Force India still fighting with McLaren for sixth after losing all its points from early in the season – had it not lost those points, the team would have been in the mix with Haas and Renault.
