Mercedes Sue Former F1 Engineer For Stealing Race Data

Mercedes have sued one of their former engineers — Benjamin Hoyle — for stealing confidential data just before he left the racing team and joined rivals Ferrari.

According to case documents filed by Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains Limited, the powertrain manufacturing wing of the Mercedes AMG F1 team, Hoyleinformed Mercedes on May 21, 2014 that he would resign when his contract expired at the end of 2015. When Mercedes came to know that Hoyle intended to join Ferrari, he was reassigned to non-F1 related duties.

However, Mercedes allege that Hoyle searched for and saved files including a race report from the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix including mileage and damage data related to the Mercedes F-1 powerplant along with files containing the code required to decrypt raw race data files.

Mercedes is seeking the return of all documents and information as well as the payment of its legal fees.
It also asks that Hoyle be blocked from joining Ferrari or any other F-1 team until after the 2016 season.