Ferrari and Red Bull chiefs have rowed over the former’s recruitment of the FIA’s Laurent Mekies.
Ferrari announced earlier this month that Mekies, the FIA’s Safety Director and Deputy Race Director, will join its technical department in September.
The FIA removed Mekies from any F1 duties with immediate effect ahead of his departure in June.
It is the second high-profile departure from the FIA in recent months, following the exit of Marcin Budkowski to Renault, which also triggered controversy between teams.
During the Friday Press Conference in Australia, Maurizio Arrivabene defended Ferrari’s stance, as Christian Horner expressed anger that an agreed period of ‘gardening leave’ for FIA/FOM employees, discussed at a recent Strategy Group meeting, was not used by Ferrari.
Arrivabene began, commenting: “There is nothing wrong with that because we were absolutely respecting the local law, the Swiss local law where Laurent was hired.
“And afterwards we went even further than that, because we gave him six months of gardening (leave).
“Having said so, normally what we discussed before the strategy group, we signed a confidentiality agreement, that means that we are not allowed to discuss or to share in public what we discussed there.
“Having said so, I heard comments related to us, supposedly, also called a gentleman’s agreement. I think they are comments because a gentleman’s agreement on libel law is illegal.”
While Mercedes’ Toto Wolff, who was present alongside his Ferrari and Red Bull counterparts in the Press Conference, said Mekies’ move is “no big deal”, Horner was less than amused.
“I think the disappointing element about this is that we have a thing called the strategy group where the FIA, FOM and all team principals attended,” he said
“There was an understanding and a clear statement by the teams to say ‘right, let’s have a clear position that there should be at least a period of 12 months in the garden for a member of a team going from either FOM, FIA to a team or a team going vice versa’.
“Certain teams were pushing for that period to be three years but in the end it was agreed upon being 12 months.
“What’s disappointing is that that meeting was less than six weeks ago; arguably, discussions were probably happening at that time and it almost makes those meetings pointless if we can’t agree on something and action it.”
Arrivabene countered, commenting: “We gave a mandate, that’s the main thing, we gave a mandate to the FIA, to the lawyer of the FIA to check national law and to come back to us in the next strategy group and this is what the FIA is going to do in the next strategy group which is on April 17.”
Horner continued in his offensive, believing that the situation shows discussions at the Strategy Group are a “waste of time”.
“I think that what’s most disappointing about it was that it was Ferrari or Sergio [Marchionne] who was pushing for a three-year period.
“On one hand you get a team pushing for a three-year gestation and then a few weeks later, we’re in this situation, so as I say, it makes discussions at that forum more or less a waste of time.”
