• FIA International Tribunal

Mercedes gained 'an unfair sporting advantage'

ESPN Staff
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Pirelli and Mercedes were both reprimanded for the test © Sutton Images
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The International Tribunal has ruled that Mercedes did gain an advantage from its tyre test as a result of Pirelli passing on data to the team.

Mercedes and Pirelli have both been reprimanded by the International Tribunal, with Mercedes also suspended from the Young Driver Test at Silverstone next month. While the tribunal found that both had acted in good faith and that the test 'was not carried out by Pirelli and/or Mercedes with the intention that Mercedes should obtain any unfair sporting advantage', it said there was an advantage gained.

'Mercedes did obtain some material advantage (even if only by way of confirmation of what had not gone wrong) as a result of the testing, which, at least potentially, gave it an unfair sporting advantage, to the knowledge and with the intention of Pirelli,' the report read.

Pirelli sent Mercedes a confidential email of the trackside engineering reports following the test, and the tribunal found that the marking of the emails 'as having "high importance" and "confidential sensitivity" irrefutably demonstrated an intention to pass and to receive material data.'

The tribunal also reported that 'no other team was aware of the fact that such advantage might be, or had been, obtained', because Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery did not inform Charlie Whiting that an email from March 2012 was being seen as notification.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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