Sparks flew in Melbourne on Friday – and not just on the race track. In the FIA press conference Ferrari’s Maurizio Arrivabene and Red Bull’s Christian Horner were at odds over a supposed gentlemen’s agreement the teams had in place about the recruitment of F1 personnel…

Earlier this month, news broke that the FIA’s Safety Chief and Deputy Race Director Laurent Mekies will leave his post to join Ferrari, reporting in to Technical Director Mattia Binotto.

The move sparked fierce debate amongst teams, similar to that provoked last year when it was announced that the FIA’s F1 Technical Director Marcin Budkowski was leaving the governing body to join Renault.

In both instances, some teams argued it was compromising to have someone switch allegiances so quickly, with Red Bull boss Christian Horner saying that after the Budkowski switch, all teams agreed that an employee should take 12 months gardening leave ahead of such a change.

When asked about Mekies’ move, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene bullishly defended his team’s actions and suggested there was no such agreement in place.

“There is nothing wrong with that,” he said. “We were respecting absolutely local law, the Swiss local law, where Laurent was hired. Afterwards we went even further than that because we gave him six months of gardening leave.

“However, having said that, what we have discussed before is that we have signed a confidentiality agreement that means we are not allowed to discuss or share in public what we discuss there.

“Having said so, I heard comments related to a supposed or so-called ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ and I think they are comments because a ‘gentlemen’s agreement under labour law is illegal. I thought they were comments, just comments and no more than that.”

Arrivabene admitted there was a discussion with other teams, but insisted no agreement had been made and instead it was left with the FIA’s lawyers to come back with a proposal.

Horner, however, rejected that assertion: “For me it is a big deal because the disappointing element about this is that we have a thing called the Strategy Group where the FIA, FOM and all team principals attend and we discussed the Marcin issue where there was great unrest about a key member of the FIA going to a team - in (this) case it was Renault,” he said.

“Renault diluted that by putting him on an extended gardening leave but then ensued a conversation about it being unacceptable – every team found it unacceptable.

“Of course you are dealing with employment laws across different states and different countries and to try to police legally something like that, it was agreed in the room that all the lawyers in the world couldn’t come up with a contract to police it.

“But 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 FIA/FOM to a team or from a team to vice-versa.”

Arrivabene responded: “Yes, because we gave a mandate to the FIA – to the lawyers of the FIA – to check national law and come back to us at the next Strategy Group. This is what the FIA is going to do at the next strategy group, which is on the 17th of April.”

Horner hit back, revealing that it was Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne who was pushing for a three-year period of leave. “What’s most disappointing about it is that it was Ferrari, or Sergio, who was pushing for a three-year period,” he said. “On one hand you get a team pushing for a three-year gestation and then a few weeks later we are in this situation. It makes discussions in that forum a waste of time.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, sitting between Horner and Arrivabene, said it was “not a big deal” as Mekies is not exposed to the same technical information as Budkowski. “First of all, I didn’t see any gentlemen in the room when we discussed it,” he joked. “Second, it’s completely different to Marcin.

“They are both intelligent engineers, but Marcin was involved in issuing technical directives just a few weeks before he decided to join a team and had a lot of inside [knowledge] and Laurent was involved in a totally different activities that are not as sensitive, in my opinion, as with Marcin’s. He is joining the team in seven or eight months from now and for me it is not a big deal.”