While we’re no stranger to the sight of stewards probing cars at a race meet, one things that’s a bit stranger to see is hordes of officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raiding a race team. That’s exactly what happened earlier this week when the FBI probed the offices of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing amid allegations that it stole secrets from a rival IndyCar team.
The head office of RLL Racing in Zionsville, Indiana, was raided by the FBI this week, reports Racer. The raid followed allegations that an employee for the team had brought secrets from their former employer, the Andretti Global IndyCar team, to the Indiana outfit.
During the raid, Racer reports that employees at the team were instructed to leave their computers untouched, take their belongings and leave RLL Racing’s head office. As the site reports:
The source of the investigation is alleged to involve a former employee of the Andretti Global IndyCar team, who left the team to join RLL in a senior engineering role, and the alleged transfer of intellectual property from their former team to their current team.
“We are cooperating fully with investigators,” said the team in a statement issued on Wednesday evening. “Given that this is an ongoing investigation, we are limited in what information we can share right now, but we intend to provide additional information as soon as we can.”
The FBI is also alleged to have visited the Andretti shop in August to look for proof of possible IP-related improprieties.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan is owned by former Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal as well as TV host David Letterman. The pair is also backed by entrepreneur Mike Lanigan and fields three IndyCar drivers. In 2022, the outfit moved into a new 100,000-square-foot facility in Zionsville, reports the Indianapolis Business Journal.
So far, Andretti Global has not commented on the allegations that RLL stole secrets from the team. However, a representative from IndyCar told the IBJ that the championship is “aware and monitoring the situation.”
This isn’t the first time allegations of intellectual property theft have run rampant through motorsport. The Racing Point team, now Aston Martin, faced accusations that it copied parts from rivals Mercedes for the 2020 F1 season. Following an investigation into the allegations, Racing Point was handed a fine and a points deduction, but was ultimately still allowed to run with the brake ducts that were heavily influenced by Mercedes’ designs.