I don't think they can push the walls at Monaco to make overtaking easier. There were talks of making the circuit longer by extending it on the sea, but that wouldn't make the old parts of the circuit different. Over the years, the cars have grown too wide, IMO. In the 60s, some teams were bringing cars with shorter nose cones to race at Monaco.
Looks like Kyalami is looking to make a return to F1. Still in the preliminary phase of F1 contracts.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/teams-call-for-reform-over-f1-tech-share-deals/10035310/ Teams call for ‘reform’ over F1 tech-share deals Formula 1 chiefs and the FIA have been urged to rethink how teams work together, amid unease from some of Haas’ rivals about its close relationship with Ferrari. Image Unavailable, Please Login By: Jonathan Noble Apr 19, 2022, 10:00 AM Image Unavailable, Please Login Off the back of an impressively strong start to the 2022 season for Haas, some of its competitors have questioned whether or not it has benefited too much from its close ties to Ferrari. The American-owned squad has openly bought as many Ferrari parts as possible in the past, and this year has forged ever closer links through the setting up of a Maranello-hub and the addition of a number of the Italian team’s former staff. That has prompted fears that Haas could be gaining from shared knowledge, something which teams that work in complete isolation cannot get. The FIA is fully satisfied, however, that the Haas/Ferrari partnership is above board, but that has not stopped some calling for the regulations to be tightened up in the future. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “I think it needs reform, because we want to avoid these kinds of discussions that we have now, and the polemic around the last few days or last few weeks. "Everybody deserves to perform well, and people should get credit when they've done a good job. “But some of the job-hopping or entity-hopping on the same premises is just creating arguments that are not necessary for the sport. "So definitely for us, you know, we have Aston Martin in the wind tunnel that we had two years ago. Quite a ****storm about that. We have been handling them with the utmost diligence. “But going forward, if we were to need to compromise our, let's say, income ability, we need to do this, because none of the teams should be able to cooperate in a way that we're seeing today, with some of the teams.” McLaren boss Andreas Seidl believes that F1 should go hard line on the matter, and stop any form of co-operation between teams. Image Unavailable, Please Login Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG, Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal, Alfa Romeo Racing, Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal, Alpine F1, in the team principals Press Conference Photo by: FIA Pool “It's clear for us that Formula 1 should be a championship of 10 constructors, or 11 or 12, which means there should be no transfer happening of any IP which is related to core performance,” he explained. “The maximum that should be allowed to share is the power units and the gearbox internals. That's it, there should be no sharing of any infrastructure and so on. “As soon as you allow that, IP transfer is happening on the car side and we know also from the FIA, it's difficult to police. And if something is not possible to police, you need to ban it. “That’s for two reasons: because it makes B-teams overly competitive compared to teams like us and, at the same time, there's the A-teams also benefiting from this which is even more worrying for us. “We just hope with all the dialogue which is happening also with F1, with the FIA and between several teams also, that we finally see some action in the next years in order to correct this situation.” Not all teams are in agreement that things need to change though. Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur felt that the rules that were in place were effective enough. “I'm not sure that we have to change the regulation, it's exactly the same story on the financial side - that we have to apply the rules,” he said. “And the rules are strict enough to make it fair. And if you stick to the rule, it's more than OK. “It's why I think that we are trusting the FIA, because they have to do the job of the regulator and they are doing it, they are on it. And for me, it's okay like this.” Alpine boss boss Otmar Szafnauer backed Seidl’s view that key to the matter is that the FIA is properly able to police any transfer of knowledge between teams. “I tend to agree with Fred, in an ideal world, the rules are pretty clear. The difficulty is policing,” he said. “So, if the policing of the rules is impossible, then I think we should change the rules that are able to be policed such that the playing field is even. "So I think there's more discussion to be had with the FIA, and perhaps a bit of reform on the rules such that they can be policed.” But Haas boss Gunther Steiner has brushed off what rival teams think – and says all that ultimately matters is that the FIA is satisfied with his squad’s relationship with Ferrari. Asked about Seidl’s suggestions of team partnerships being restricted to just gearbox and engine, Steiner said: “Yeah, Andreas doesn't run the FIA, fortunately. So he can suggest it, but there is a governance in place, which will define that. “There are sometimes things in the rules that if they don't work for you, you cannot go and change it. “Mercedes was winning the world championship eight years in a row, they had a very strong engine, and good for them, they did a good job. "But nobody said 'oh, we now need to change the engine rule, because Mercedes is winning everything'. “There is governance in place. And if certain people think they can change everything by just speaking, I don't think that is going to happen.”
Why does it take an investigation to point out that because the Ferrari power unit has improved greatly both Haas and Alfa have improved. Sheesh . . . . .
Sour grapes is all I can say. They were all happy when Ferrari's PU was under-performing with some drivers(won't name them)even commenting that Ferrari was a big threat based on testing results, but come race day and boom, the rivals top the charts..The moment PU started to give a good competition, all the politics springs up. Nobody seems to realise that Ferrari and her customer teams had to endure a difficult 2020-21 season to see the fruits of this day, close relation or not!! Atleast give them credit for what they achieved.
From the team that brought us "we crave competition because we thrive in it", bring us volume 4 of "FIA, our rivals are faster than us, I demand you investigate and punish them immediately!" Image Unavailable, Please Login
For that we need Carlos to have a clear head and think of victory over Max, Perez and other drivers. When there's a clear field, then he should think of going toe to toe with Charles. This is for the race day. For qualifying, he should go all out but not overdoing it that he has nothing in his hands.
Sour grapes. Mercedes are bitter that Ferrari outsmarted them at their own games, playing by the precedents Mercedes set. They're ones to talk about questionable development relationships. How interesting it is that all Mercedes runners are struggling with drag, just like the works team is. As for Szafnauer, maybe he should concentrate on pulling the Renault brand from its dark era. I'd like to see Renault succeed, instead of their team leader worry about Ferrari's pace, when they struggle to stay in front of Sauber.
They have a point. It's not about the engine but about that the Haas chassis is also subcontracted to Ferrari. The same has been happening for years with Alpha Tauri and Red Bull without so many complains. But now that it became too obvious with the pink Mercedes, middle class teams are starting to stir the pot.
Fully agree with Seidl on this point. Its not a Mercedes issue overall. This entire subject was brought online via Stroll blatant copying. Just an idiot Billionaire shortcut to success - so he thought. The FIA should look at this no matter what team is involved. --McLaren boss Andreas Seidl believes that F1 should go hard line on the matter, and stop any form of co-operation between teams. “It's clear for us that Formula 1 should be a championship of 10 constructors, or 11 or 12, which means there should be no transfer happening of any IP which is related to core performance,” he explained. “The maximum that should be allowed to share is the power units and the gearbox internals. That's it, there should be no sharing of any infrastructure and so on.--
Where were these idiots when RP literally copied the Merc and only got a slap on the wrist for literally using a brake scoop from the Merc? Let’s see… Wolff and Otmar were too busy conspiring to hide the evidence and Seidl said nothing. Now that they all risk getting spanked by what they thought was a last-place team, they want to not just revisit EXISTING rules but try to smear Haas and Ferrari. Wolff once again—after their DQ for wing rule infringement at Brazil—shows absolutely no understanding of rules as written and agreed to. He only cares if it impacts on him negatively. What a moron. Vasseur and Steiner said it: these are the rules. Suck it up.
But it's designed by Ferrari staff. The issue is that rules allow to buy IP. That was made to allow small teams to outsource the work to Dallara, Lola or whatever, but now some teams are buying from others and that's a potential conflict of interest.
It's a very grey area. If Ferrari sells the IP of a chassis to Haas, it must be of a different design than the "home" one to satisfy the FIA. Haas has some Ferrari staff "on loan" to operate the engines, what could stop them potentially "borrowing" chassis designers from them? I can't see nothing wrong with it myself. Probably Seidl is barking up the wrong tree.
This isn't the central allegation. The allegation is that Haas did development research for Ferrari, which Ferrari then used for their own car. If that's the case, Haas did a crappy job, because they're well off Ferrari's pace. Further, too many people get caught up designs being similar, thinking the only way two teams can come to a similar design is via sharing of information, which is not true at all. The regulations produce parameters for design teams, where the equations result in similar looking approaches. There's also the matter of the engine. Mercedes engines might have packaging requirements that have led to designs that are lacking this year.
They’re ex-Ferrari staff employed by Haas—quite obviously as required by the rules—as opposed to the previous arrangement of sub-contracting the design and build to Dallara. The build and some engineering support is still done at Dallara. As for IP sharing, this also is obviously not allowed but what is allowed is a whole slew of parts sharing of transferrable components (TRC; previously non-listed parts) that include among other things—without forgetting the PU obviously—front and rear suspension; gearbox housing and gearbox internals; some cooling systems; rear crash structure and probably the installation interface requirements of these. Not to mention parts that are standard supply components (SSC) and open source components (OSC). This is quite a bit different to what Merc did with RP where RP basically scanned the whole car and used components from the Merc that were “listed” parts that were supposed to have been of their own design. So in laying out their design, Haas were obviously driven by the the need to incorporate the quite major components and systems from Ferrari but they had to do their own aero. And since the aero on both cars is quite different, I don’t believe Haas could really develop some aero detail that can be applied to the Ferrari aero configuration.
