FIA says Mercedes wheel rim dispute has been 'settled'

The FIA has said that the dispute over Mercedes' controversial wheel rim design has been settled.

Mercedes introduced earlier this year a novel wheel rim design and assembly that featured grooves and holes that helped keep rear tyre temperatures in check.

However, fear of a protest from a rival team - namely Ferrari - decided the Silver Arrows squad to shelve the rims after last month's Japanese Grand Prix, while also seeking clarification on the concept's legality from F1's governing body.

The FIA subsequently declared the design as legal, although Mercedes still refrained from mounting the wheels in the last three races.

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However, as far as FIA race director Charlie Whiting is concerned, the controversy has been put to rest.

"We think the matter is settled," Whiting said last weekend in Brazil.

"If they’ve asked the stewards to do the same thing they did in Mexico, my answer to you was, no they didn’t.

"The reason they were allowed to take it to the stewards in Mexico was because in the sporting code, they were asking to settle a matter. They did that.

"If they came back with the same question the stewards would be unlikely to do it because the last time it didn’t settle the matter. So, that was it really.

"It’s just a technical opinion that we’ve given. We will continue to use that opinion in any similar cases.

"In the meantime I imagine that we will, once the dust has settled on this season, we’ll attempt to do something about it."

As disputable as the wheel design appeared to be, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff insisted that the team's recent struggles were not linked to the team not using the special rims.

"We didn’t want to have a protest with a possible court ruling weeks down the line when we deem these spaces to not be fundamentally responsible for performance," he said.

"I can assure you that our assessment is that the problems we had this three races were not linked to these spaces. It’s more the overall concept.

"You can see many of the other cars, Sebastian was struggling on the tyres, Kimi was a bit better but not much better.

"Red Bull is the only team that is looking strong in the race but they are looking weak in qualifying. It’s maybe a compromise they have achieved."

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