Target Competition has accused fellow TCR Europe competitor Comtoyou Racing of the theft of a hard drive containing a season’s worth on onboard videos at the final round of the series in Barcelona.
Target put out the accusation on social media on Sunday morning, just prior to the start of the final race of the season, in which Comtoyou Racing scored a 1-2-3 result. The statement read:
“During the course of the weekend of the final round of the 2022 TCR Europe season in Barcelona Target Competition learned about the theft of a season’s worth of onboard videos, including winter testing by a competitor team.
“The engineer of the competitor Comtoyou Racing stole a Target Competition hard drive, downloaded the confidential videos of all our drivers without our permission or knowledge and then distributed them in pre-event Team Information to their team and drivers, giving them an unfair competitive advantage at the last weekend of the TCR Europe season at Barcelona.
“Furthermore, they also still possess all videos from the 2022 season which can be used to continue gaining an illegal advantage from our intellectual property going forward.
“This unsporting behaviour, in our opinion, should not go unpunished. Without a favourable decision, we will have to look into the legal options available to us.”
Later on Sunday, Comtoyou Racing issued its own statement, vehemently denying any wrongdoing, demanding that Target retracts its earlier statement.
“In no case did Comtoyou Racing steal data or videos from the competitor, and in no case did we refuse a meeting to talk about it,” retorted the statement from the Belgian team. “These statements are purely and simply false and defamatory.
“We formally dispute the allegations contained in this communication and we request that these publications be immediately removed and that an official denial be immediately published by the competitor.
“We demand that these points be respected, otherwise we will file a complaint with the authorities within 24 hours for slander and defamation.”
TouringCars.Net has reached out to both Comtoyou Racing and Target Competition for further comment.
Target Competition lost out to Comtoyou Racing in both the drivers’ and teams’ title fights in 2022, with Josh Files also losing the runner-up spot in the standings to Tom Coronel after Sunday’s final race of the season.