Budget Cap Enforcement

Yes but only gossip here is treated as fact LOL. You know its Mercedes for all the issues facts or not on F1. Now Ferrari are happy to add their voice but here its always Mercedes. Amazing that much self esteem here is tied to Mercedes being at fault. This place is beyond juvenile LOL!

 

In the end gap between top teams and the rest is the same.
FIA clearly failed on this aspect.

 

ALL of my posts on this topic start with ... IF RedBull is NOT in violation.

Learn to read, before you post.

 

Why the budget cap is only good as a valuation improvement tool and not so much for competition it appears so far. I think its good the smaller teams are more valuable but yet some like Haas, do not spend to the limit or actually challenge the top teams yet. Yes Haas improved but thats marginal and overall the spending limit only makes them appear more valuable and might preserver a few cars on the grid that look nice getting passed.

We have a world awash in wealth. There should be no limit to spend. Haas will still get passed either way lol. They have no Latifi to worry about now Just a few more races can Latifi cause spending on accidents lol.

 

Anyone else think that taking 10 months from the last race for the audit is a poor reflection on the FIA? Bernie used to push for the fans to know who won at the conclusion of the race, here we are 10 months later questioning who the WDC is, not a good look for the FIA. They need to hire a better audit team.

 

IMO because the system itself is massively flawed. First of all there is the extreme timing of submissions, review and result. Submissions have to be done by March, 3, nearly 4 months after the season finished (this by itself is already a complete extreme and any severe punishment such as WCC or WDC stripping is utterly anti climatic and will instantly cause people, that religiously watch all races, question why they should even bother if the exact results of the season are only submitted by then. But we have to wait a further 6-7 months to get the results. Did I say anti climax at 3 months?

Then, as per usual, the FIA left up plenty of things for interpretation. So questions get asked. With the inevitable leaks since the FIA is about as watertight as a sieve, the vultures smell something and jump on it with sensationalist statements such as "5 million buys half a second" or "300K would've won us the title" that are utterly unprovable and completely factless, but create yet more rifts in the already extremely toxic community.

The way the FIA set the cost cap up was never going to work, but they only made it worse by these extremely long time periods between it all. I mean in Singapore we are bitching because we had to wait a couple of hours to see if Perez got a penalty or not (hell, we are bitching because we only knew 10 laps from the end that Perez was under investigation and had we known earlier, Lec would've saved his tyres!), but 10 months for a title is acceptable?

With the amount of accounting and extremely complex structures all these teams have set up, especially at the sharp end of the grid, this was never going to work. The best, and simplest, way to police any of this is by limiting wind tunnel hours and CFD computers. But we already have that.

 

For some people on this forum, Mercedes and Hamilton are guilty of everything.

 

And for others, Red Bull and Verstappen are guilty of everything.

 

I don't feel myself concerned by that remark; for me, Red Bull and Verstappen deserve their success.

They struggled from 2014, first with the Renault PU, then took a gamble on Honda (rejected by McLaren), and built on from there.

They overtook Ferrari as the main Mercedes challenger, fought on equal strength in 2021, and this year they are magnificent.

I hope some silly rule isn't going to change that.

With insight, it was really calamitous for McLaren to ditch Honda; they could have finished where Red Bull is now!

I wonder if Zak Brown has nightmare about it !

 

Regarding the budget cap ... this post is not directed at you william ...

So many on this forum absolutely "light-up" with the possibility that Red Bull was "cheating" ... countless posts about how they need to be penalized, punished, disqualified ... BUT, it's all based on unsubstantiated RUMOR (at this point).

HOWEVER, while we're all GUESSING, even the suggestion that Mercedes be penalized or punished for publicly cultivating and spreading these rumors, should they be meritless or grossly exaggerated ... is met with disdain and ridicule.

One "flavor" of hypothetical is entertained, embraced, and amplified. But the counter-point "flavor" to that hypothetical is summarily ridiculed and dismissed.

Why am i not surprised

 

Disagree on Mclaren.
The Honda Power unit is good now but this is not the decisive differentiator.
Their design department is poor compared with Red Bull and James Key isn't the new Adrian Newey.

 

Adrian Newey has been at Red Bull all along the hybrid era.

But even Newey couldn't work miracle with the Renault PU; things improved only when Honda came onboard.

I deduct that Honda must have been decisive in Red Bull's success. Am I wrong? Perhaps ...

 

Nope, not at all.

Renault are not what they used to be. They've been trying to run their works outfit for like, eight years now, and they've managed one win. They just can't run a full race team like they can be as an engine supplier, and they need a serious rebuild as a brand.

RBR were smart to run away from the dysfunction at Renault.

OTOH, people don't give Mercedes aero enough credit. Costa and Allison are Ferrari alumni that are as good Newey at building cars. People forget that Newey was outclassed through the 2000's.

 

Red Bull won numerous races with Renault during the hybrid era.

Mclaren one by chance last year with Ricciardo.

This year i strongly believe there are two decisives others thing for Red Bull success
.
1/ They have found a clever trick to generate constant downforce without deteriorating their top speed.
I would say their rear suspension system is the key.
2/Max is an incredible race machine now.

 

FYI, Red Bull won 12 GPs with Renault hybrid engines ( 3 in 2014, 0 in 2015, 2 in 2016, 3 in 2017, and 4 in 2018).
12 GPs in 5 years ...

 

It will be interesting to see what the findings of the FIA are. Historically breaches of the technical regulations are a pretty black and white affair. Something simple like vehicle weight has zero tolerance for interpretation and you are welcome to make your car as heavy as you like. If you choose to run close to the minimum there is no tolerance and I'm ok with that. The budget cap is very much the same where you can spend as little as you like but push the boundaries and the line in the sand is easily defined. What is not so easily defined is every permutation of what constitutes an expense and how it is policed. I would say that if a team interpreted the rules differently and that interpretation is defendable then some leniency is required as the rules evolve. What I want to see is how big the overspend is and what the reason is given for it. Should it be significant and should it not be explained in a fashion that support the rules then the penalty should be supremely harsh. This has always been the way when a team blatantly breaks the rules.

 

+1

As a true Garagista, RBR have Max and Newey making up the extra difference required.

 

"Like sands thru the hour glass....."

"So our the Days of our Lives."


What a soap opera this whole Budget Cap Enforcement issue this is.

 

I was tempted to create another account just to give this another like. A lot of fans have double standards.

 

There is no doubt that those who have the most to gain from another team being caught going over the budget cap are working that angle hard right now in the political sense. I neither blame or condemn them for it. Such actions are merely part of the game and EVERY team loves to play the victim whenever it suits them.

One thing I wholly disagree with are these mythical 'lap time' gains claimed by any team or person where X number of dollars = x lap time. That is totally rubbish and it is FAR more complex and intangible than that. Even something as simple as weight is difficult to be accurate as to how much 10kg affects a car so imagine saying if I could spend X amount more it is worth so much lap time. Total nonsense and un-quantifiable

It reminds me of a funny experience I had years back. In 1995 I raced cars for the first time and it was F1200. For those that don't know it is open wheel with a VW Beetle engine and gearbox. Dead slow by racing standards with about 60hp but it was all I could afford. The guy running the team told me that he had been at it for close to 20 years and every year after the winter guys would talk about how they found 1-2hp on the dyno over the winter. As he told me when I started we were at about 60hp but here we are 20 years later and still around the same power. Just last month I saw that same team owner (just a lovely guy) and asked him about what power the cars are up to as this is our running joke. 'Still the same'

 

Christian Horner said $200k could be decisive.

"what we don't want to do is end up playing a game of chicken. As to say: does he go to 4.9 [million] over? Do we go to 4.7 [million] over? And that [the $0.2m difference = $200k] would be one upgrade that could be the differentiating factor of, you know, this World Championship."

dont Merc and Ferrari have a reported development budget of 7-8 million? so 1 mill is around 10% more "potential " , if they are over 10 million? that is over twice as much on two cars covering two seasons so 5 mill each season could have a potential of 60-70% more each year..

That is a huge.


The deadline for the announcement was set by the fia, who presumably have hired a team of accountants from some large consultancy firm (PWC/KPMG/whatever) to do the the analysis. Having worked in an office for those kinds of firms for many years, I’m pretty sure they won’t have been late delivering such a high profile task, they rarely are.
So, by far the most likely explanation for the last minute delay is that irregularities have been uncovered. The thing I guess none of us know is what happens then? Do the FIA go back to the team(s) in question and ask for clarification? Is there some kind of behind closed doors appeal process where you can argue that xyz expense should be excluded? Are we now in the middle of the financial equivalent of teams badgering the race director?
Anyone got any idea at all what the process is after all the numbers have been added up?

 

He may not be aware of the logic of sentence structure where:: if <something false> then <nothing in this clause has any meaning>

 

Brown: “Critically important” F1 cost cap must be policed like technical rules
Zak Brown believes Formula 1 must treat any potential breaches of the cost cap in the same way as a technical rule break ahead of the FIA’s update on Monday.

Does Zak mean "Secret' Ferrari deal lol?

 

No I understood Mr Grammerly's input. His unhealthy and pathetic obsession with Mercedes related to any topic is hilarious but soooooo sad. Open minds.........

 

It sounds like RBR were over a good $5-6 million over the cap, but they contest whether divisions like Powertrains should be included.

I honestly don't have a problem with it. RBR and all F1 teams have a right to spend as much as they want. It's their money, and the FIA trying to tell the top teams what they can spend to appease empty threats of withdraw from lower tier teams is ludicrous.

Team orders were banned in 10', but Ferrari still used them. Had Ferrari won the title in 10', would it have been a tainted title? Absolutely not. I think the "engine freeze" is another thing that's a huge overreach by the FIA.

I think a big issue is RBR simply elected to do more in season development than Mercedes did last year, and Ferrari did this year. Both Mercedes and Ferrari assumed their PU advantages would carry them over whatever Red Bull came up with. Mercedes stopped updating for the most part after Silverstone, because they knew their "spicy engine" concept was coming for the last races, and Ferrari thought their power advantage would carry them through to the summer. Both were horribly mistaken.

Ferrari and Mercedes should've protested to the FIA that because porpoising was such an issue, the cost cap should be null and void.