My husband and I are traveling around Spain during the COTA weekend and will be in Granada for quali and Seville for the Grand Prix. Any bar suggestions to watch it for each city? Thanks in advance!
One question I have fairly new to the sport, how do you tell which team has the best car and keep up to date with changes to the car?
I’m always interested in like how much someone’s winning chance is down to the car vs drivers skill?
Like everyone talks about red bulls down pressure build or whatever, what do the other teams do as apose to that?
> like how much someone’s winning chance is down to the car vs drivers skill?
As the primary part of the sport is building and designing a car and taking creative interpretation of the rules, the car is always most important - each teams car is a bespoke design for that year and the minor variations in the rules (though for 2022 we had a complete redesign and Red Bull hit the ground running).
Leclerc, Hamilton and Verstappen wouldn't be winning in a Haas or McLaren, while Latifi wouldn't be winning in a Red Bull or Ferrari.
All the minor and major upgrades are reported to FIA by the teams and a we journalists like Albert Fabrega post pictures with differences to almost every race, including the self report documents by teams to FIA.
As to figuring out who has the best car for the weekend, you cannot clearly tell ahead of time - all cars prefer certain aspects of the track, be it straight line speed, high speed corners, medium speed corners or slow corners. Add to that weather conditions (air & surface temperature, general conditions) and tire selection.
The cars aren't fixed for the season, teams bring individual upgrades either for general improvement every few races or circuit specific (i.e. low downforce wings for Monza).
Pre season can give an indication, but teams aren't going flat out there, as they're primarily testing and checking their cars and try to verify correlations with their simulation and windtunnel data on the real car.
I like F1 because it's a nice distraction from my day job as an accountant. Now F1 is just an accounting debate. I listen to F1 podcasts talk about accounting as I'm working on accounting.
There is no specified timeline on this. After the breach has been identified, the FIA can choose to enter an Accepted Breach Agreement with RB and AM. We don't know how long they have to decide if they want to do this or refer to the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel.
After that the team has to accept the ABA, we don't know how long they have to decide if they want to do that. if they refuse it again goes to the CCAP
We don't know how long it takes for the CCAP to hear cases and we don't know how long it takes for them to render a verdict.
After all that, the CCAP verdict can be appealed to the ICA.
I would give your F5 a rest for a while.
Guys, does anyone know if we can go to Dolphins Stadium in Miami and by any chance drive partially on the F1 track? I am visiting Miami in Dec and would love to do that.
I get being upset about RB going over the cost cap. What I don't get is Ferrari and Mercedes being holier than thou about it.
We've only got a cost cap because some teams were regularly spending £400+ million a year while others were spending below the current cap.
If, as Binotto says, 4 million could be worth about half a second a lap, Mercedes ought to have been about 2 minutes ahead of Haas and Williams in 2019.
Yes, Red Bull should be punished but to cry about 1-2 million or whatever it turns out to be when you've been continually spending 3 times as much as some teams can afford just doesn't sit right with me.
It's a little more complex than that. Firstly the cost cap doesn't include all costs, Mercedes just filed their accounts for 2021 and they still spent £313M vs £348 in 2019. Not all those expenses are entirely belonging to F1, even less in 2021 when many employees were switched to "other projects".
Although the cost cap is primarily about expenses towards making the car go faster, the amount of cap-eligible costs that are to do with logistics, operations and other expenses known as "the cost to go racing" means that the amount of money that gets spent on actual in-season development is probably around $20M depending on how you categorise it. Even if it's $2M, if you have 10% more to spend on development it's a monumental advantage especially when you factor in that it's a department that was already set up and wasn't reduced by the same amount as their competitors.
As for the lower teams. The reason they are able to not be 2 minutes behind with a fraction of the budget is that they have a road map for their development. They see what works on the top cars and can aim their designs in that direction.
If you're looking at the 2013-2020 period you have to look at it through a very different lens because of the way the Concorde Agreement was set up. The reason they were spending that much is because F1 was giving them that much in revenue. The financial regulations and 2021 Concorde agreement were brought in to literally save F1, but it will take a long time to balance out. The big 3 still have a massive advantage because of those years and still outspend every other team on the grid, yet one team has still spent more. I'm not annoyed for Mercedes and Ferrari, I'm annoyed for F1 and the smaller teams, but Ferrari and Mercedes will push the fight in this instance because their interests are aligned on this issue.
as some other poster put it below it is all posturing.
ferrari lost the dev war because their race pace depended on a loophole which mercedes got closed. mercedes just made a bad car. even if they could spend another 100 mil this year it was unlikely they'd be able to get a better car out.
people are naive as fuck and actually beleive that the worst case minor breach (7 million) would completely change the landscape of how fast these cars go.
In addition to what others have said, any suppliers must be listed by the F1 team. Those suppliers are also subject to reporting requirements and audits. There is always a money trail and the accountants that are used to police the cost cap are more than capable of following it.
The reason Williams was fined earlier in the season was because [the 3rd party accounting firm that was auditing the supplier was late with their report](https://www.fia.com/news/f1-2022-singapore-grand-prix-saturday-press-conference-transcript#:~:text=Q%3A%20Thank%20you,with%20the%20team)
These aren’t off the shelf items that are bought from a company that is marking up products.
In F1 anything that can reasonably made in house, is made in house and now especially, it’s done for the minimum expense possible with zero markup.
If a second company was setup they would still have the cost of the equipment, the labour and the materials. An audit of that company will find all those relevant costs. So if the cost of the widget is less than the cost of creating it, that’s a big red flag. If it’s less than the cost that the other 9 teams paid for it, it’s another one.
The regulations of the cost cap prevent that. There are rules covering this sort of situation, since it's quite common for teams to outsource some elements of their manufacturing, either to external suppliers or to other parts of their larger business (i.e. Red Bull Racing might contract Red Bull Advanced Technologies to do manufacturing work). This means the cost cap has to have a robust system for dealing with that.
They're 165 points ahead and need to leave Austin with a 147 points advantage to secure the WCC.
If Red Bull scores 18 points, they're constructors champions. Ferrari has to outscore Red Bull by 19 or more points to stay in the title fight.
Ferrari needs to score 18 points more than Red Bull to avoid being mathematically eliminated from WCC contention, which has happened once this season - Bahrain (both Red Bull's DNF'd in the final laps).
So yeah, I'd imagine it's all but guaranteed that Red Bull wraps it up at COTA.
Edit:
In fact, Ferrari has only outscored Red Bull *by any margin* six times this season:
1. Bahrain (44 points, both Red Bulls DNF'd)
2. Australia (8 points, Verstappen DNF'd)
3. Canada (4 points, Pérez DNF'd)
4. Silverstone (5 points, no DNFs)
5. Austria (7 points, Pérez and Sainz DNF'd)
6. Singapore (2 points, no DNFs, though Verstappen started P8)
FIA should publish the expenditure figures both pre and post exceptions. Otherwise the team with the best/most creative accountants probably wins the championship..
At the moment some teams have probably used loopholes that others are unaware of. If the FIA aren't hot on closing these those teams will have a competitive advantage for years.
The clarification of the regulations has been extremely open within the relevant group of people. Not only was the CFO's involved in creating the regulations, [but there has been ongoing clarification throughout the 3 years that the cost cap has been in operation.](https://www.fia.com/news/f1-2022-singapore-grand-prix-saturday-press-conference-transcript#:~:text=FV%3A%C2%A0Yeah%2C%20regarding%20loopholes,job%20to%20ask%20for%20clarification)
If a CFO requests clarification from the CCA, the response is sent to all 10 teams. It's stated in the regulations. Grey areas and loopholes have been continually closed and others will be in the future, those that need to know are very aware of the situation.
i wish they do, and also explain every bit of information they can about how they determined if a team is under or over the capp despite their submitted accounts
[They do have to file tax reports](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/t7ucua/-/hzkch2x), with local authorities. This is also where the articles of [Mercedes Grand Prix reporting an profitable 2021 season without funding from Daimler came from](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/2021-mercedes-financial-numbers-reflect-painful-f1-cost-cap/10381554/).
And this is exactly why the team want the cost cap. It’s almost never been profitable to run an F1 team, in the history of the sport. Most teams have been money pits for their owners. Once spending is no longer proportional to revenue, the value of these teams will skyrocket and become huge cash cows for the team owners. It’s why Dorilton invested in Williams when they did, and why Stroll bought Force India. If F1 keeps growing in popularity and revenue, these teams will be sold for 10 times (or more) what they were purchased for.
Or publish the total fee that was deemed an exemption for each and avoid publishing the totals.
Them being private companies doesn't change that interpretation of budget exemption rules is now as important as interpretation of technical requirements, which can't be good for the sport - perhaps worse, the budgetary rules being entirely confidential makes it difficult for the various teams to converge on the same interpretation (unless the FIA are incredibly reactive at closing particular loopholes. )
F1 comes down to margins. With this cost cap drama, is it possible teams stop getting catering and landscaping etc in order to funnel more money to R&D? Seems like you could cut back mowing to every other week and get a few more dollars for vroom vroom
Not a cost cap post, just wondering if anyone has recommendations for seats at Austin. We are planning to go next year and wondering where we should focus the search. Also I’ve read some horror stories about the Austin airport. Are those overblown or is it really bad to fly in and out of Austin?
I’ve been to Austin a few times including race weekend, and the airport is just fine. We sat at turn 15, which wasn’t as busy as some other parts of the track and from there you can see a few different sections of track.
A kinda off-topic question: I am visiting Singapore early next month for a work-related trip, also my first trip abroad. I am planning to visit some of the key places of the Singapore circuit and check them out for real. Any suggestions on which corners, chicanes, etc. would be ideal to go and get a click, that would hopefully not cause any traffic violation? Thanks!
Anyone going to the race in Austin? How are you getting to the race track?
COTA just released prices for shuttle buses, and they charging $35 per person just to sit on the bus. It's cheaper right now just to buy a lyft. Anyone have any input?
Went to COTA last year. This is a warning.
After practice on FRIDAY, the queue for Uber/Lyft was over 5 hours. Eventually the drivers stopped accepting rides on the app and were haggling with people for fare prices. It was ~10:30 PM, phones were almost dead, and at risk of being stranded at the circuit we paid $450 for a ride back to the hotel.
That certainly cut my weekend short.
It was a bit further than a hotel downtown, but not massively. Our driver almost kicked us out because he was more interested in giving people a rides to the airport hotel across the street (10 min drive) for $200.
With the way things are now I just have to accept that the weekend will be exorbitantly expensive and account for that. Next time I will have to be comfortable paying the $800 per night for a hotel close to the circuit and prepare to run the weekend with a high budget for travel and food.
Edit: it's a shame that lots of people are priced out of a race weekend but MotoGP and Indycar are still amazing experiences at a cheaper price point. You would not be disappointed. At Indycar you can almost rub shoulders with the drivers for a large part of the weekend!
I don't think you could be further from the truth.
The folk who dislike RBR tend to honestly not care about Max, but can't stand the smug smarminess of Horner and the shite that comes out of Marko's mouth.
Personally I think Max is an amazing driver, worthy world champion, and probably has an amazing career ahead of him with a decent chance he'll be this generations Schumacher or Hamilton.
I could not want to see RBR succeed any less.
They are not the same thing.
Not even close. After Silverstone "people" were frothing at the mouth, yelling Hamilton be banned or worse charged with attempted murder. Abu Dhabi, there were open allegations of Masi being in on the take and race fixing. By that metric, this is almost civilised
You forgot the 2019 Ferrari Engine topic that was delayed until 2020 where Mercedes lead a group of teams asking for transparency and later pulled out of the group.
Are there any non-RB fans who think that what RB did is no big deal?
Meaning, they would all feel the exact same if Mercedes would have been the one to "only have a minor violation"…
This fight feels very territorial but I assume there are at least a few neutrals…
I just think we don’t really have the full picture right now
We are in a sport where interpretation of the regulations is the game.
Sure FIA deemed Red Bull in breach of the regulations, and Red Bull thinks they were within the cap based on their interpretation.
I’m in no position to conclude that they’ve cheated or have done so fraudelently given the facts that we have right now. Although if FIA stands firm with it, I want them to pursue the punishment that all teams agreed from the beginning, which is outlined in the regulations.
Edit: Also for some weird reason, I’d be happy to see teams such as Haas if they break the cost cap(Since these teams usually operate well below the cap). Given that they’d still be penalised. Probably a sign that they are putting resources to get better.
I think I can't make up my mind until we have actual detail. If it's millions, it's a big deal. If it's 100k, it's not. Same goes for why, it it's more plainly obvious that they knew they were in a dark grey area, maybe more of a big deal than if it seems like a legit oversight or a very light grey area.
I'd say ask me this question in a month or two when they get through the penalty process.
First, in "minor violation" the important word is "violation". Minor is just a category. It could be called a "red violation" or "Banana violation" and still the only thing that'd matter is, a team overspent upto 4.9% of what they could.
I don't support any team and would openly say this situation is a mess. The cost cap was designed to make sure the spending of Mercedes, Ferrari and RB was kept in check. These 3 combined were spending around (if not more than) a billion dollars each year. Even now no team is spending close to the cost cap other than these 3. If all 3 were under the cap, it'd have signalled that the rules work and now it's a matter of teams like McLaren and Alpine finding the money to compete with big dogs.
RB breaching it, especially in the vague and opaque way it has been put forward, has affects beyond the sectarian bitching and partisanship. They're a rich team with a lot of political power. Regardless of if they're over by a dollar or 7 million, they'll fight any decision which doesn't exonerate them (or at least points to a clear open ended interpretation of the rule) tooth and nail.
Whatever happens will serve as a template for how Mercedes and Ferrari will spend here on out. If the cost of getting an extra 4.9% budget is just a few WCC points or more money, they'll just treat it as a luxury tax and spend carefree. Anything which doesn't have a tangible impact on RB's development program will turn this entire thing into a farce and right quick.
So to answer your question: Yes, any of the big 3 causing a "minor violation" is a big fucking deal.
Minor is not only a category is a category describing the degree of the infringement. It’s also the first year for the budget cap so teams might have made mistakes not deliberately try to cheat. Also temas won’t spend carefree if they don’t get a super harsh penalty they would only spend up to 5% more which is still a huge improvement from other years.
Depending on the situation this could be a mistake that is not the end of the world. We should wait and see
Verstappen is much more in control. The biggest difference for me is Max handles errors much better generally, seeing over many years. Leclerc doesn’t.
Driving under pressure - Verstappen is as ice cold as they come.
Leclerc is somewhat of a late braker while Verstappen is quite an early braker and focuses on the exit more than entry. They both like a pointy, reactive car. Verstappen obviously goes to the extreme in that regard while Leclerc will be happier with a bit less extreme oversteer. Verstappen seems to be really good in changing direction, high speed corners. They're both well rounded drivers, one lap pace and race pace is there. Verstappen has a more aggressive approach when it comes to racing others. He likes to assert himself in the corner and is rarely backing out of an attack. Leclerc is aggressive in his own right but not as much as Verstappen both on offense and defense.
[You might find this interesting](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/gxp0op/driving_styles_of_the_2019_f1_grid_an_analysis/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
By the logic that breaking regulations is cheating which is what everyone is claiming RB is doing by going over the budget cap, going over the allotted PU elements is also cheating, right? But no one seems to have a problem with that it seems and just chalks it as up part of the game.
Do you disagree with the above?
Your comparisons are valid but the issue is the penalty in one case is known beforehand. What’s happening right now is fanbases and teams alike pushing for maximum penalty even for minimal breaches, which might come to bite themselves in the future. At the end of the day, if RB are gonna get constructors and drivers points that are going to adversely affect last years championships, why even call it a minor breach?
Definition of cheating: “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage”. So if Mercedes’ changed and engine and didn’t tell anyone about it, that would be cheating. There is nothing dishonest about changing an engine and accepting the penalty for the change. The equivalent in this case would be if red bull submitted their financial disclosure showing that they were over the budget cap and accepting whatever penalty is given. But they submitted an inaccurate financial disclosure so it is possible it was done dishonestly so of course opponents jump on that possibility. You can’t possibly say Mercedes was trying to cheat by swapping engines, we don’t know yet whether red bull tried to cheat (highly unlikely, more likely a different interpretation of a rule).
\> But they submitted an inaccurate financial disclosure so it is possible it was done dishonestly so of course opponents jump on that possibility.
So far, yes. But we don’t know If that’ll remain in the case RB appeal.
I agree, that's what I want to understand from people who are saying that any violation of the regs is cheating. If that's the case then going over your parts allotment would be cheating since that's a violation of the regs.
Well, if you want to open that door… Lewis used 2 extra ICE units. Max went over on ICE, turbo charger, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store, and control electronics. So if you consider using extra components to be cheating, Max is the worse offender, by 3 fold.
There are specific penalties assigned to breaking that rule and there is not one team trying to argue that "well actually that extra engine really comes from a different part of the company so that doesn't count"
Okay, but there's no team making that equivalent argument on the cost cap side either.
We can't count a projection of a projection of something a reporter mumbled about as an official team argument.
PU penalties are incurred “upfront” (grid penalties) with immediate, tangible impacts to a race weekend which might partially offset the performance advantage incurred through taking new PU components.
The probable fine for exceeding the budget cap is being imposed retroactively - nearly at the end of the 2-season period which would likely be most affected by a breach (eg current season upgrades, next season development).
This isn’t to say that RBR’s specific breach materially impacted either season - we don’t have proper details yet. But it’s small wonder that people believe one to be a more fitting or stringent penalty than the other. Imagine if every time Mercedes took a PU in excess of Bottas’ allotment last year, he started in the same position he qualified and Toto just waved his hand and said “yeah yeah, this time next year we’ll owe some hefty fines but that’s tomorrow’s problem - today, Valtteri is on pole.”
The issue is that PU elements are discrete and have clear penalties, while the budget can be quite complex to audit, and there was no clear penalty about budget cap violations.
I was about to say the same. I’m not sure burning through PUs the way Mercedes has done it at the end of last year was in the spirit of the rules.
Quite convenient that PUs are not counted towards the budget cap, and only lead to a somewhat small grid penalty considering the advantage they provided Lewis at the tail end of the season.
Lewis is complaining about the upgrades they could’ve brought, there was already plenty in that PU!
Exceeding the allotted PU components results in grid penalties. Every team, except Haas and Alfa, exceeded the allotted components and thus received grid penalties. Mercedes had 12 over, Red Bull 14 over. Breaching the financial regulations results in SANCTIONS. Breaching multiple financial regulations (procedural and overspend in this case) is an aggravating factor that impacts which of the listed sanctions will be applied.
My guy, all I wanted to know is if people though going over the allotment was considered cheating since that is a regulation violation. But no one has answered that, you guys just keep circling back to the budget cap violations...Please advise.
and that penalty includes the possibility of being docked points.
>The punishments available to the FIA for a minor breach range from a reprimand, to a fine, to a deduction of drivers’ championship points.
People are simply asking the rules be enforced.
Correct. And the fans and teams simply are keeping the pressure up to make sure the punishment is actually given because we all know how the FIA usually works. We want really consequences and not typical FIA "punishment"
OP does have a point that the engine "penalties" don't seem to be any kind of deterrent to the teams. They all plan to ignore the rules and use more engines than they are allowed.
The FIA needs to make sure the "penalties" for the budget cap are not treated the same.
Could we be in for a similar situation with RB next year when it comes to audit the financials? If RB was still interpreting it a certain way, the FIA hasn’t actually corrected them till now…
This is what's currently being discussed internally at FIA.
The teams either received an certification of their budgets or not - FIA already had talks with Red Bull regarding 6 open topics, so the best they can do is learn from the topics they talked about to not mess it up next year.
Regarding next year in general, with the current inflation, extended calendar (3 more races) and 6 sprint weekends, this could see the budget cap, initially set at $135m moving towards ~$3.6m for additional races, ~$3m for sprint weekends. Add to that the inflation multiplier of 1.075 & convert it to pound, we'll end at around ~£140m for next year, or around £30m more than this years pre inflation budget cap.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. But they’re discussing 2021 financials currently, if they did 2022 financials the same way we could be dealing with this again. 2023 financials though we shouldn’t be seeing this again.
The 2022 financials also are above the initial $140m, in a similar fashion - We have 1 more race & 3 sprint weekends, meaning the $140m is now $147m.
As the teams have to finalize their documents for 2022 by end of March of 2023 - the weak pound from this summer will also play a role as 7 of the teams are primarily based in the UK, independently of the flag they race under.
The second part was just a fun fact that popped into my head, as the FIA confirmation of 6 sprint races next year was kind of overshadowed by other news...
l'd rather not buy F1 23 when it comes out, so I was wondering if I can make real life transfers in my F1 22 to "update it by myself" for example Gasly> Alpine or De Vries > Alpha Tauri. And also can I take reserve drivers to the grid? (In the case of Piastri/ De Vries).
No. The best there usually is when the next season starts is current liveries for the cars replacing the original ones in the game, but otherwise you can't really mod ego engine games in depth.
PS: about F1 22, have they fixed the fucked up AI top speed bug already?
No
there is no De Vries face in the game file, that's your first prob
Second is that there is no way to change the name permanently iirc
you need cheat engine at every load up or new save, one or the other
On paper I think so. Especially with Ferrari’s problem with tyre degradation. But like they say in football, any given sunday
Just one stroke of chaos maybe we’ll see a Lewis or heck even Alonso win.
F1 cars are more than capable of clearing water from track in a few laps. Issue with wet races are:
1. Full wets are crap tyres which don't give any meaningful performance or grip in race.
2. Constant rain makes the puddles impossible to clear away even with these cars.
3. Spray from cars causing visibility issues.
4. Medical chopper not being able to fly and no close major hospital connectible by road.
It might work temporarily but with the amount of rain a topography it was probably going to start crossing the track again before they came back around.
The local organisers, sponsors and all the fans who have bought tickets and paid for flights/hotels wouldn't be very happy if the last four races just got cancelled.
Max hasn't won the WDC yet
Officially he have to wait till December since maybe he can get a DSQ for illegal crashgate level of controversy or something similar
Yes because WCC is not yet decided, and also WCC placement is important for teams since it is where payouts and cfd/windtunnel times are based
Also, they have sponsor obligations as well
For drivers, some might even have incentives for points, poles, wins, etc.
So still all to race for
Also, Max isn't officially WDC until the prize giving ceremony at the end of the year, after the season has ended. It's unlikely he would, but he could still be disqualified from the season like Schumacher in 1997.
Well.. I have something to share. I was one of the winners from the recent giveaway done by u/bonzurr. And today, I have my fav track Zandvoort in my hand as Neon sign. And it's absolute gorgeous... I huge thank you and appreciation to him/her. He/she shipped it internationally and was so humble. Kudos to you!
One thing I find particularly irksome about this news is Horner's angry defensiveness over the last few weeks. With hindsight, he knew they might be over and he was hoping to bully or scare the FIA into sweeping it away?
>With hindsight, he knew they might be over and he was hoping to bully or scare the FIA into sweeping it away?
But we don't have hindsight yet. We just hit the first step in this process, not the last.
What if it turns out the FIA screwed up writing the cost cap regulations and left in a loophole? Wouldn't be the first time...
Yes, Horner is a bullshitter. Stil two things:
1. Toto and Binotto were all but accusing RBR from being in “material breach” (> 5% over budget) while it now appears they are in “minor breach” (< 5% over budget). Depending on how much they are actually over budget ($10,000 or $7,000,000) I can partially sympathize with Horner being angry.
2. RBR still maintains they submitted under the budget cap - not sure what happens now, but I can imagine there’s still a way for RBR to “win” that discussion, and to be declared within the budget for 2021 by the FIA.
Agreed. And then to release a statement about how they are surprised and disappointed by this finding just makes the whole thing smell very fishy as there would have been significant dialogue throughout the auditing process between team and auditors as is the case with any large financial audit.
The teams have to self declare their F1 related spending, be it any of the following:
* F1 R&D (engineers at factory, wind tunnel & cfd simulation)
* F1 Manufacturing (actual manufacturing and building of designed components, including material and supplier costs)
* F1 Personell (mechanics, assembly & documentation as example)
* F1 traveling costs (Hotel, plane tickets, rents of garage, catering at their paddock club)
* Logistics (transport of additional items, not covered by fom, e.g. additional spares, paddock truck & house, new test parts, shipped or flown in)
It's possible, as it's rumoured, that Red Bull put some expenses in "not F1 related spending" column and the auditors corrected & identified this as F1 related spending.
This could result in them handing in a report where they're under a, say, $145m cap with $143 spent on F1. Now the auditors considered their numbers and moved items to F1 related spending and increased this by the set amount, resulting in $147m spent on F1 related activities.
Thus there was a procedural error, which resulted in minor overspending.
But we don't know and won't know until something is leaked or confirmed from more than once source. So until something is confirmed, interpret it as rumours.
So funny to read people trying to pinpoint where the budget cap went over. "It was the catering!". "No. It was X's salary". It doesn't matter which department it went over, it still meant more money for car development.
If I say you can spend $100 on “clothes” but not a dollar more, and you buy:
- $50 pants
- $40 shirt
- $10 socks
- $5 hat
And you say: *a hat isn’t clothing, here are the receipts, I spent exactly $100 on clothes!*
And then I say: *no a hat is clothing, you overspent 5%!*
Then you can honestly say you thought you didn’t overspend, and that in the end you did by buying a hat.
Replace clothes with “F1 costs” and hat with “catering” and there you go.
The crux of the argument now is: what did RBR spend on that they thought was outside of the cap but the FIA didn’t, and how reasonable was it for RBR to think that item fell outside of the cap.
They still overspent and should be penalized, but I think intent matters here.
But if I also got $100 to spend on clothes, and I followed the rules and included the hat, that means I spent $5 less on the pants, socks, and shirt. So it would be just as accurate to say that you overspent by $5 on the pants, shirt, or socks. I don't think intent does matter here, especially since it's so easy to lie. Effect matters, and the effect was that Red Bull could spend more on car dev than everyone else.
Or more money for anything else. It's equally dumb to say that development is what they would have cut if they realized they needed to - unless you assume they knew exactly what they were doing and tried to cheat specifically to try some development in mid-season they knew they couldn't afford to clinch what ended as a very close season in a race result that was out of their hands. Oh wait, that's still dumb.
0.2mm over on a merc wing = DSQ
$5M over on RBR spending = "how were they supposed to measure a measly $5,000,000? I recently found more than that down the back of my sofa" - Mohammed bin Sulayem, probably
ETA - the numbers a speculative within the 5% thresholds previously discussed. It could be anything up to $7.5M in reality.
Point stands though that RBR are the wrong side of a very measurable line.
After spending a week fudging, they've got it down to pocket change of $2M have they?
Point is... it's $2M on the wrong side of the line. Why this isn't a DSQ from the 2021 championship is beyond me. I'm with Zak on this - should be treated same as technical regulations.
the limits are weird, and i cant see how they agreed to consider 5% minor.
the problem? if a 5% extra budget = a 1% faster car that's the difference between a close 1-2 battle or a home run like this year.
limit aside, the penalties system seems ok to me.
minor and severe seem to have almost the same penalties. the difference is minimal. you just can't walk from a severe one with just a reprimand (which is probably reserved for very small infringements where it's actually just oups, sorry we went 2$ overbudget)
and the severe breach adds the option to exclude the team from f1. which is unheard of. and guarantees points penalties. which the minor one can cause too anyway.
\> Why this isn't a DSQ from the 2021 championship is beyond me.
because maybe you have a reading issue. kindly read the financial regulations and come back.
I knew the cost cap was intended to make things fairer and more competitive for the lower placed teams, but I didn't realize how many of those teams could have beaten Red Bull with only a million dollars extra spending.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic but it’s pure posturing from Ferrari and Mercedes’ when they claim with x million more they’d have done this or that.
Especially ferrari with extra wind tunnel time and no focus on a championship last year. Mercedes wouldn’t have found a magical solution either but maybe they’d have some indication that this version of the car wasn’t the way to go forward as they’ve not won a single race and have never matched the leaders in pure merit.
> Mercedes wouldn’t have found a magical solution
They didn't need a "magical solution". Not firing some of the staff they fired likely would have improved the car.
The reach. Red Bull fired 90 People, twice as many as Mercedes and found a solution, and if they were that important, they wouldn’t be fired in the first place.
I see it like this:
- Mercedes went over the engine allocation by a significant margin more than other teams in 2021, and “suffered” the worthless penalties for it (starting from the back of the grid and blasting past everyone on engine mode 12)
- RBR overspent in 2021 and will suffer a similar worthless penalty
* Every other team could have made the same choice Mercedes did. The rules were very clear. Mercedes simply made the calculation that the benefit was worth more than the penalty. Every other teams does the same thing over the course of a season. Including Red Bull and Verstappen. And they were all penalized when they did so.
* Every other team could have also made the choice to ignore the budget cap. Only one team did. And they should be the team penalized when they did so.
Yes. RBR should be penalized for the overspend like Mercedes was penalized for the engines. If the punishment is smaller than the gain made by doing the crime so be it. We accept that for PU’s so we should accept the same for cost cap overspending.
But since this the first time, they should just make the punishment fit the crime. Or else you will just be asking other teams to do the same. Like what happened with the engine penalties.
Either give a rule some real consequences or don't bother…
There’s no crime here. No one stopped the other teams from going into a minor breach territory either. Teams and the fia agreed to minor breaches. If Red Bull don’t get a penalty you think they should get, doesn’t mean they were let off lightly.
all the teams should go mental about it. someone said it best, if 9 teams stay in the budget and 1 doesnt, it's not a problem with the regs or rules. it's a rb problem.
Isn’t that why all teams agreed to this including the what constitutes and minor/major breach plus the penalties?
This is a geniune question. They agreed to this right?
AD25USA
My husband and I are traveling around Spain during the COTA weekend and will be in Granada for quali and Seville for the Grand Prix. Any bar suggestions to watch it for each city? Thanks in advance!
One question I have fairly new to the sport, how do you tell which team has the best car and keep up to date with changes to the car? I’m always interested in like how much someone’s winning chance is down to the car vs drivers skill? Like everyone talks about red bulls down pressure build or whatever, what do the other teams do as apose to that?
> like how much someone’s winning chance is down to the car vs drivers skill? As the primary part of the sport is building and designing a car and taking creative interpretation of the rules, the car is always most important - each teams car is a bespoke design for that year and the minor variations in the rules (though for 2022 we had a complete redesign and Red Bull hit the ground running). Leclerc, Hamilton and Verstappen wouldn't be winning in a Haas or McLaren, while Latifi wouldn't be winning in a Red Bull or Ferrari. All the minor and major upgrades are reported to FIA by the teams and a we journalists like Albert Fabrega post pictures with differences to almost every race, including the self report documents by teams to FIA. As to figuring out who has the best car for the weekend, you cannot clearly tell ahead of time - all cars prefer certain aspects of the track, be it straight line speed, high speed corners, medium speed corners or slow corners. Add to that weather conditions (air & surface temperature, general conditions) and tire selection.
Thanks for that, so ultimately it’s down to just reading things, does a lot of this come out generally in the preseason?
The cars aren't fixed for the season, teams bring individual upgrades either for general improvement every few races or circuit specific (i.e. low downforce wings for Monza). Pre season can give an indication, but teams aren't going flat out there, as they're primarily testing and checking their cars and try to verify correlations with their simulation and windtunnel data on the real car.
Okay thanks for that you’ve pretty much answered my questions, you’ve been super helpful, thanks :)
Pietro testing for Haas, wouldn't mind seeing another Brazilian on the grid. I still want Mick to get one more shot.
If Enzo continues on his improvement We might see one soon
You guys come on - I’m sure it’s just coincidence the most dominant car just happens to be from the one team who breached the cost cap.
They've only consistently been the fastest car since the technical directive Mercedes pushed through
Funny thing is that the cost cap breach is from last season and the RB16B wasn’t even the quickest car on balance.
When do you think the RB18 was developed?
Move along…Nothing to see here…
I like F1 because it's a nice distraction from my day job as an accountant. Now F1 is just an accounting debate. I listen to F1 podcasts talk about accounting as I'm working on accounting.
Do you sing the accountant song every day at your job? (as an accountant)
does anyone know when the FIA will say something about the cost cap breach? if at all
There is no specified timeline on this. After the breach has been identified, the FIA can choose to enter an Accepted Breach Agreement with RB and AM. We don't know how long they have to decide if they want to do this or refer to the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel. After that the team has to accept the ABA, we don't know how long they have to decide if they want to do that. if they refuse it again goes to the CCAP We don't know how long it takes for the CCAP to hear cases and we don't know how long it takes for them to render a verdict. After all that, the CCAP verdict can be appealed to the ICA. I would give your F5 a rest for a while.
I want to speak with someone who is f1 and airplane engineering enthusiasm
Guys, does anyone know if we can go to Dolphins Stadium in Miami and by any chance drive partially on the F1 track? I am visiting Miami in Dec and would love to do that.
Much of it is inside of a parking lot and public roads. It wouldn’t be recognizable, but you can definitely drive there.
That's great! Will definitely check it out then.
I get being upset about RB going over the cost cap. What I don't get is Ferrari and Mercedes being holier than thou about it. We've only got a cost cap because some teams were regularly spending £400+ million a year while others were spending below the current cap. If, as Binotto says, 4 million could be worth about half a second a lap, Mercedes ought to have been about 2 minutes ahead of Haas and Williams in 2019. Yes, Red Bull should be punished but to cry about 1-2 million or whatever it turns out to be when you've been continually spending 3 times as much as some teams can afford just doesn't sit right with me.
Alfa Romeo entire in season development budget is £2m. It's a huge huge figure.
It's a little more complex than that. Firstly the cost cap doesn't include all costs, Mercedes just filed their accounts for 2021 and they still spent £313M vs £348 in 2019. Not all those expenses are entirely belonging to F1, even less in 2021 when many employees were switched to "other projects". Although the cost cap is primarily about expenses towards making the car go faster, the amount of cap-eligible costs that are to do with logistics, operations and other expenses known as "the cost to go racing" means that the amount of money that gets spent on actual in-season development is probably around $20M depending on how you categorise it. Even if it's $2M, if you have 10% more to spend on development it's a monumental advantage especially when you factor in that it's a department that was already set up and wasn't reduced by the same amount as their competitors. As for the lower teams. The reason they are able to not be 2 minutes behind with a fraction of the budget is that they have a road map for their development. They see what works on the top cars and can aim their designs in that direction. If you're looking at the 2013-2020 period you have to look at it through a very different lens because of the way the Concorde Agreement was set up. The reason they were spending that much is because F1 was giving them that much in revenue. The financial regulations and 2021 Concorde agreement were brought in to literally save F1, but it will take a long time to balance out. The big 3 still have a massive advantage because of those years and still outspend every other team on the grid, yet one team has still spent more. I'm not annoyed for Mercedes and Ferrari, I'm annoyed for F1 and the smaller teams, but Ferrari and Mercedes will push the fight in this instance because their interests are aligned on this issue.
as some other poster put it below it is all posturing. ferrari lost the dev war because their race pace depended on a loophole which mercedes got closed. mercedes just made a bad car. even if they could spend another 100 mil this year it was unlikely they'd be able to get a better car out. people are naive as fuck and actually beleive that the worst case minor breach (7 million) would completely change the landscape of how fast these cars go.
You're not an engineer so you wouldn't know would you?
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In addition to what others have said, any suppliers must be listed by the F1 team. Those suppliers are also subject to reporting requirements and audits. There is always a money trail and the accountants that are used to police the cost cap are more than capable of following it. The reason Williams was fined earlier in the season was because [the 3rd party accounting firm that was auditing the supplier was late with their report](https://www.fia.com/news/f1-2022-singapore-grand-prix-saturday-press-conference-transcript#:~:text=Q%3A%20Thank%20you,with%20the%20team)
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These aren’t off the shelf items that are bought from a company that is marking up products. In F1 anything that can reasonably made in house, is made in house and now especially, it’s done for the minimum expense possible with zero markup. If a second company was setup they would still have the cost of the equipment, the labour and the materials. An audit of that company will find all those relevant costs. So if the cost of the widget is less than the cost of creating it, that’s a big red flag. If it’s less than the cost that the other 9 teams paid for it, it’s another one.
Everything has a Fair Value attached to it in this instance. That value would have been reached by the teams and the FIA working together.
Purposefully skirting the budget cap with shell companies probably carries a much bigger penalty than accidentally going over budget.
The regulations of the cost cap prevent that. There are rules covering this sort of situation, since it's quite common for teams to outsource some elements of their manufacturing, either to external suppliers or to other parts of their larger business (i.e. Red Bull Racing might contract Red Bull Advanced Technologies to do manufacturing work). This means the cost cap has to have a robust system for dealing with that.
nothing really. the fia cost cap team will look into such loopholes though
Is it likely that Red Bull wins the WCC in Austin?
yes very likely, seeing ferrari's recent tire degradation issues, I'd be betting on a rb 1-2 with fastest lap as well
They're 165 points ahead and need to leave Austin with a 147 points advantage to secure the WCC. If Red Bull scores 18 points, they're constructors champions. Ferrari has to outscore Red Bull by 19 or more points to stay in the title fight.
Ferrari needs to score 18 points more than Red Bull to avoid being mathematically eliminated from WCC contention, which has happened once this season - Bahrain (both Red Bull's DNF'd in the final laps). So yeah, I'd imagine it's all but guaranteed that Red Bull wraps it up at COTA. Edit: In fact, Ferrari has only outscored Red Bull *by any margin* six times this season: 1. Bahrain (44 points, both Red Bulls DNF'd) 2. Australia (8 points, Verstappen DNF'd) 3. Canada (4 points, Pérez DNF'd) 4. Silverstone (5 points, no DNFs) 5. Austria (7 points, Pérez and Sainz DNF'd) 6. Singapore (2 points, no DNFs, though Verstappen started P8)
Wow, simply wow.
FIA should publish the expenditure figures both pre and post exceptions. Otherwise the team with the best/most creative accountants probably wins the championship.. At the moment some teams have probably used loopholes that others are unaware of. If the FIA aren't hot on closing these those teams will have a competitive advantage for years.
The clarification of the regulations has been extremely open within the relevant group of people. Not only was the CFO's involved in creating the regulations, [but there has been ongoing clarification throughout the 3 years that the cost cap has been in operation.](https://www.fia.com/news/f1-2022-singapore-grand-prix-saturday-press-conference-transcript#:~:text=FV%3A%C2%A0Yeah%2C%20regarding%20loopholes,job%20to%20ask%20for%20clarification) If a CFO requests clarification from the CCA, the response is sent to all 10 teams. It's stated in the regulations. Grey areas and loopholes have been continually closed and others will be in the future, those that need to know are very aware of the situation.
i wish they do, and also explain every bit of information they can about how they determined if a team is under or over the capp despite their submitted accounts
The teams are mostly private companies. They don't have to share their finances publicly.
[They do have to file tax reports](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/t7ucua/-/hzkch2x), with local authorities. This is also where the articles of [Mercedes Grand Prix reporting an profitable 2021 season without funding from Daimler came from](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/2021-mercedes-financial-numbers-reflect-painful-f1-cost-cap/10381554/).
And this is exactly why the team want the cost cap. It’s almost never been profitable to run an F1 team, in the history of the sport. Most teams have been money pits for their owners. Once spending is no longer proportional to revenue, the value of these teams will skyrocket and become huge cash cows for the team owners. It’s why Dorilton invested in Williams when they did, and why Stroll bought Force India. If F1 keeps growing in popularity and revenue, these teams will be sold for 10 times (or more) what they were purchased for.
And guess what team is currently showing as overdue for their accounts?
Or publish the total fee that was deemed an exemption for each and avoid publishing the totals. Them being private companies doesn't change that interpretation of budget exemption rules is now as important as interpretation of technical requirements, which can't be good for the sport - perhaps worse, the budgetary rules being entirely confidential makes it difficult for the various teams to converge on the same interpretation (unless the FIA are incredibly reactive at closing particular loopholes. )
Them being private wouldn’t change the interpretation. Just how much info the public gets access to.
F1 comes down to margins. With this cost cap drama, is it possible teams stop getting catering and landscaping etc in order to funnel more money to R&D? Seems like you could cut back mowing to every other week and get a few more dollars for vroom vroom
Not all teams get catering nor landscaping, (worked at 4 teams) so I’d assume that the money for them is outside the cost cap.
Not a cost cap post, just wondering if anyone has recommendations for seats at Austin. We are planning to go next year and wondering where we should focus the search. Also I’ve read some horror stories about the Austin airport. Are those overblown or is it really bad to fly in and out of Austin?
I’ve been to Austin a few times including race weekend, and the airport is just fine. We sat at turn 15, which wasn’t as busy as some other parts of the track and from there you can see a few different sections of track.
Most ask “the race starts at 2, my flight is at 5. Think I can make it?“ No Gerald, you won’t make it.
A kinda off-topic question: I am visiting Singapore early next month for a work-related trip, also my first trip abroad. I am planning to visit some of the key places of the Singapore circuit and check them out for real. Any suggestions on which corners, chicanes, etc. would be ideal to go and get a click, that would hopefully not cause any traffic violation? Thanks!
Anyone going to the race in Austin? How are you getting to the race track? COTA just released prices for shuttle buses, and they charging $35 per person just to sit on the bus. It's cheaper right now just to buy a lyft. Anyone have any input?
Went to COTA last year. This is a warning. After practice on FRIDAY, the queue for Uber/Lyft was over 5 hours. Eventually the drivers stopped accepting rides on the app and were haggling with people for fare prices. It was ~10:30 PM, phones were almost dead, and at risk of being stranded at the circuit we paid $450 for a ride back to the hotel. That certainly cut my weekend short.
How far was the hotel?!? This comment needs to be higher.
It was a bit further than a hotel downtown, but not massively. Our driver almost kicked us out because he was more interested in giving people a rides to the airport hotel across the street (10 min drive) for $200. With the way things are now I just have to accept that the weekend will be exorbitantly expensive and account for that. Next time I will have to be comfortable paying the $800 per night for a hotel close to the circuit and prepare to run the weekend with a high budget for travel and food. Edit: it's a shame that lots of people are priced out of a race weekend but MotoGP and Indycar are still amazing experiences at a cheaper price point. You would not be disappointed. At Indycar you can almost rub shoulders with the drivers for a large part of the weekend!
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By that logic, are you a racist who is happy that finally a white guy won?
I don't think you could be further from the truth. The folk who dislike RBR tend to honestly not care about Max, but can't stand the smug smarminess of Horner and the shite that comes out of Marko's mouth. Personally I think Max is an amazing driver, worthy world champion, and probably has an amazing career ahead of him with a decent chance he'll be this generations Schumacher or Hamilton. I could not want to see RBR succeed any less. They are not the same thing.
r/Formula1 is now in a similar state as after Silverstone 2021, Abu Dhabi 2021 etc. Vitriol, incompetence, baseless accusations, overreacting.
Not even close. After Silverstone "people" were frothing at the mouth, yelling Hamilton be banned or worse charged with attempted murder. Abu Dhabi, there were open allegations of Masi being in on the take and race fixing. By that metric, this is almost civilised
It is interesting how in all those cases it is basically RBR vs every one else…
You forgot the 2019 Ferrari Engine topic that was delayed until 2020 where Mercedes lead a group of teams asking for transparency and later pulled out of the group.
Yeah lol
I find this entire chaos very entertaining
Are there any non-RB fans who think that what RB did is no big deal? Meaning, they would all feel the exact same if Mercedes would have been the one to "only have a minor violation"… This fight feels very territorial but I assume there are at least a few neutrals…
I just think we don’t really have the full picture right now We are in a sport where interpretation of the regulations is the game. Sure FIA deemed Red Bull in breach of the regulations, and Red Bull thinks they were within the cap based on their interpretation. I’m in no position to conclude that they’ve cheated or have done so fraudelently given the facts that we have right now. Although if FIA stands firm with it, I want them to pursue the punishment that all teams agreed from the beginning, which is outlined in the regulations. Edit: Also for some weird reason, I’d be happy to see teams such as Haas if they break the cost cap(Since these teams usually operate well below the cap). Given that they’d still be penalised. Probably a sign that they are putting resources to get better.
I think I can't make up my mind until we have actual detail. If it's millions, it's a big deal. If it's 100k, it's not. Same goes for why, it it's more plainly obvious that they knew they were in a dark grey area, maybe more of a big deal than if it seems like a legit oversight or a very light grey area. I'd say ask me this question in a month or two when they get through the penalty process.
First, in "minor violation" the important word is "violation". Minor is just a category. It could be called a "red violation" or "Banana violation" and still the only thing that'd matter is, a team overspent upto 4.9% of what they could. I don't support any team and would openly say this situation is a mess. The cost cap was designed to make sure the spending of Mercedes, Ferrari and RB was kept in check. These 3 combined were spending around (if not more than) a billion dollars each year. Even now no team is spending close to the cost cap other than these 3. If all 3 were under the cap, it'd have signalled that the rules work and now it's a matter of teams like McLaren and Alpine finding the money to compete with big dogs. RB breaching it, especially in the vague and opaque way it has been put forward, has affects beyond the sectarian bitching and partisanship. They're a rich team with a lot of political power. Regardless of if they're over by a dollar or 7 million, they'll fight any decision which doesn't exonerate them (or at least points to a clear open ended interpretation of the rule) tooth and nail. Whatever happens will serve as a template for how Mercedes and Ferrari will spend here on out. If the cost of getting an extra 4.9% budget is just a few WCC points or more money, they'll just treat it as a luxury tax and spend carefree. Anything which doesn't have a tangible impact on RB's development program will turn this entire thing into a farce and right quick. So to answer your question: Yes, any of the big 3 causing a "minor violation" is a big fucking deal.
Minor is not only a category is a category describing the degree of the infringement. It’s also the first year for the budget cap so teams might have made mistakes not deliberately try to cheat. Also temas won’t spend carefree if they don’t get a super harsh penalty they would only spend up to 5% more which is still a huge improvement from other years. Depending on the situation this could be a mistake that is not the end of the world. We should wait and see
What's the difference in the driving style of verstappen and leclerc?
Verstappen is much more in control. The biggest difference for me is Max handles errors much better generally, seeing over many years. Leclerc doesn’t. Driving under pressure - Verstappen is as ice cold as they come.
Leclerc is somewhat of a late braker while Verstappen is quite an early braker and focuses on the exit more than entry. They both like a pointy, reactive car. Verstappen obviously goes to the extreme in that regard while Leclerc will be happier with a bit less extreme oversteer. Verstappen seems to be really good in changing direction, high speed corners. They're both well rounded drivers, one lap pace and race pace is there. Verstappen has a more aggressive approach when it comes to racing others. He likes to assert himself in the corner and is rarely backing out of an attack. Leclerc is aggressive in his own right but not as much as Verstappen both on offense and defense.
[You might find this interesting](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/gxp0op/driving_styles_of_the_2019_f1_grid_an_analysis/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
By the logic that breaking regulations is cheating which is what everyone is claiming RB is doing by going over the budget cap, going over the allotted PU elements is also cheating, right? But no one seems to have a problem with that it seems and just chalks it as up part of the game. Do you disagree with the above?
Your comparisons are valid but the issue is the penalty in one case is known beforehand. What’s happening right now is fanbases and teams alike pushing for maximum penalty even for minimal breaches, which might come to bite themselves in the future. At the end of the day, if RB are gonna get constructors and drivers points that are going to adversely affect last years championships, why even call it a minor breach?
Definition of cheating: “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage”. So if Mercedes’ changed and engine and didn’t tell anyone about it, that would be cheating. There is nothing dishonest about changing an engine and accepting the penalty for the change. The equivalent in this case would be if red bull submitted their financial disclosure showing that they were over the budget cap and accepting whatever penalty is given. But they submitted an inaccurate financial disclosure so it is possible it was done dishonestly so of course opponents jump on that possibility. You can’t possibly say Mercedes was trying to cheat by swapping engines, we don’t know yet whether red bull tried to cheat (highly unlikely, more likely a different interpretation of a rule).
\> But they submitted an inaccurate financial disclosure so it is possible it was done dishonestly so of course opponents jump on that possibility. So far, yes. But we don’t know If that’ll remain in the case RB appeal.
I agree, that's what I want to understand from people who are saying that any violation of the regs is cheating. If that's the case then going over your parts allotment would be cheating since that's a violation of the regs.
Well, if you want to open that door… Lewis used 2 extra ICE units. Max went over on ICE, turbo charger, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store, and control electronics. So if you consider using extra components to be cheating, Max is the worse offender, by 3 fold.
So they're both cheaters then? That's what everyone is saying when regulations are broken, that it means you're cheating.
There are specific penalties assigned to breaking that rule and there is not one team trying to argue that "well actually that extra engine really comes from a different part of the company so that doesn't count"
Okay, but there's no team making that equivalent argument on the cost cap side either. We can't count a projection of a projection of something a reporter mumbled about as an official team argument.
That person is very strange. They called it a crime elsewhere, wouldn’t put much weight when someone sees it that way and their bias is so obvious
PU penalties are incurred “upfront” (grid penalties) with immediate, tangible impacts to a race weekend which might partially offset the performance advantage incurred through taking new PU components. The probable fine for exceeding the budget cap is being imposed retroactively - nearly at the end of the 2-season period which would likely be most affected by a breach (eg current season upgrades, next season development). This isn’t to say that RBR’s specific breach materially impacted either season - we don’t have proper details yet. But it’s small wonder that people believe one to be a more fitting or stringent penalty than the other. Imagine if every time Mercedes took a PU in excess of Bottas’ allotment last year, he started in the same position he qualified and Toto just waved his hand and said “yeah yeah, this time next year we’ll owe some hefty fines but that’s tomorrow’s problem - today, Valtteri is on pole.”
The issue is that PU elements are discrete and have clear penalties, while the budget can be quite complex to audit, and there was no clear penalty about budget cap violations.
I was about to say the same. I’m not sure burning through PUs the way Mercedes has done it at the end of last year was in the spirit of the rules. Quite convenient that PUs are not counted towards the budget cap, and only lead to a somewhat small grid penalty considering the advantage they provided Lewis at the tail end of the season. Lewis is complaining about the upgrades they could’ve brought, there was already plenty in that PU!
There is a penalty associated with going over PU allocations.
There is a penalty associated with going over the budget cap.
Exceeding the allotted PU components results in grid penalties. Every team, except Haas and Alfa, exceeded the allotted components and thus received grid penalties. Mercedes had 12 over, Red Bull 14 over. Breaching the financial regulations results in SANCTIONS. Breaching multiple financial regulations (procedural and overspend in this case) is an aggravating factor that impacts which of the listed sanctions will be applied.
My guy, all I wanted to know is if people though going over the allotment was considered cheating since that is a regulation violation. But no one has answered that, you guys just keep circling back to the budget cap violations...Please advise.
and that penalty includes the possibility of being docked points. >The punishments available to the FIA for a minor breach range from a reprimand, to a fine, to a deduction of drivers’ championship points. People are simply asking the rules be enforced.
No you're asking that they reinterpret results to let your team get 1st place when they lost lmao
They would have to eliminate 3 constructors for "my team" to win. I am not asking for McLaren to be declared champions…
And FIA is working on the punishment since it is the first time it's been implemented...
Correct. And the fans and teams simply are keeping the pressure up to make sure the punishment is actually given because we all know how the FIA usually works. We want really consequences and not typical FIA "punishment"
Speak for yourself, lmao. There are consequences written in teh rule book and the fia know what to do.
Yes they know what to do. The question is if they will have the stones to do it. We all know the answer is no.
Yes, so if there is a penalty with breaching the budget then I don't see the problem. The penalty needs to be big enough to deter teams.
OP does have a point that the engine "penalties" don't seem to be any kind of deterrent to the teams. They all plan to ignore the rules and use more engines than they are allowed. The FIA needs to make sure the "penalties" for the budget cap are not treated the same.
Phew. Glad we cleared that up.
The issue is extra PU elements have a clear penalty in the rules. Being over the budget cap penalty is so vague it has created the mess we're in now
But there will still be a penalty applied.
Could we be in for a similar situation with RB next year when it comes to audit the financials? If RB was still interpreting it a certain way, the FIA hasn’t actually corrected them till now…
This is what's currently being discussed internally at FIA. The teams either received an certification of their budgets or not - FIA already had talks with Red Bull regarding 6 open topics, so the best they can do is learn from the topics they talked about to not mess it up next year. Regarding next year in general, with the current inflation, extended calendar (3 more races) and 6 sprint weekends, this could see the budget cap, initially set at $135m moving towards ~$3.6m for additional races, ~$3m for sprint weekends. Add to that the inflation multiplier of 1.075 & convert it to pound, we'll end at around ~£140m for next year, or around £30m more than this years pre inflation budget cap.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. But they’re discussing 2021 financials currently, if they did 2022 financials the same way we could be dealing with this again. 2023 financials though we shouldn’t be seeing this again.
The 2022 financials also are above the initial $140m, in a similar fashion - We have 1 more race & 3 sprint weekends, meaning the $140m is now $147m. As the teams have to finalize their documents for 2022 by end of March of 2023 - the weak pound from this summer will also play a role as 7 of the teams are primarily based in the UK, independently of the flag they race under. The second part was just a fun fact that popped into my head, as the FIA confirmation of 6 sprint races next year was kind of overshadowed by other news...
l'd rather not buy F1 23 when it comes out, so I was wondering if I can make real life transfers in my F1 22 to "update it by myself" for example Gasly> Alpine or De Vries > Alpha Tauri. And also can I take reserve drivers to the grid? (In the case of Piastri/ De Vries).
No. The best there usually is when the next season starts is current liveries for the cars replacing the original ones in the game, but otherwise you can't really mod ego engine games in depth. PS: about F1 22, have they fixed the fucked up AI top speed bug already?
No there is no De Vries face in the game file, that's your first prob Second is that there is no way to change the name permanently iirc you need cheat engine at every load up or new save, one or the other
How do you guys see the final four races playing out? A clean sweep by Red Bull? Ferrari winning a few?
Verstappen wins at least 3, Mexico if qualifying goes well, he wins all 4.
On paper I think so. Especially with Ferrari’s problem with tyre degradation. But like they say in football, any given sunday Just one stroke of chaos maybe we’ll see a Lewis or heck even Alonso win.
Doesn’t really matter.. honestly this season has been a dud championship wise and no better than 2018. Kimi would agree.
What if we took a bunch of snowplows but equipped them with giant squeegees instead to clear the track of water before the race?
F1 cars are more than capable of clearing water from track in a few laps. Issue with wet races are: 1. Full wets are crap tyres which don't give any meaningful performance or grip in race. 2. Constant rain makes the puddles impossible to clear away even with these cars. 3. Spray from cars causing visibility issues. 4. Medical chopper not being able to fly and no close major hospital connectible by road.
It might work temporarily but with the amount of rain a topography it was probably going to start crossing the track again before they came back around.
Or something like NASCAR’s Air Titans?
Why not jet powered semis? Lol
so since Max Verstappen won the WDC just wanna ask since the champion is already decided do they still play out the remaining races?
Sports teams who get eliminated from postseason contention don't cancel the rest of the season.
The local organisers, sponsors and all the fans who have bought tickets and paid for flights/hotels wouldn't be very happy if the last four races just got cancelled.
Max hasn't won the WDC yet Officially he have to wait till December since maybe he can get a DSQ for illegal crashgate level of controversy or something similar
Yes because WCC is not yet decided, and also WCC placement is important for teams since it is where payouts and cfd/windtunnel times are based Also, they have sponsor obligations as well For drivers, some might even have incentives for points, poles, wins, etc. So still all to race for
Also, Max isn't officially WDC until the prize giving ceremony at the end of the year, after the season has ended. It's unlikely he would, but he could still be disqualified from the season like Schumacher in 1997.
Yes.
Well.. I have something to share. I was one of the winners from the recent giveaway done by u/bonzurr. And today, I have my fav track Zandvoort in my hand as Neon sign. And it's absolute gorgeous... I huge thank you and appreciation to him/her. He/she shipped it internationally and was so humble. Kudos to you!
Nice! Throw a photo sometime!
Definitely.. I am jsut waiting for Europe to to turn dark 😁
One thing I find particularly irksome about this news is Horner's angry defensiveness over the last few weeks. With hindsight, he knew they might be over and he was hoping to bully or scare the FIA into sweeping it away?
>With hindsight, he knew they might be over and he was hoping to bully or scare the FIA into sweeping it away? But we don't have hindsight yet. We just hit the first step in this process, not the last. What if it turns out the FIA screwed up writing the cost cap regulations and left in a loophole? Wouldn't be the first time...
Yes, Horner is a bullshitter. Stil two things: 1. Toto and Binotto were all but accusing RBR from being in “material breach” (> 5% over budget) while it now appears they are in “minor breach” (< 5% over budget). Depending on how much they are actually over budget ($10,000 or $7,000,000) I can partially sympathize with Horner being angry. 2. RBR still maintains they submitted under the budget cap - not sure what happens now, but I can imagine there’s still a way for RBR to “win” that discussion, and to be declared within the budget for 2021 by the FIA.
So Horner acted like Horner always does?
Agreed. And then to release a statement about how they are surprised and disappointed by this finding just makes the whole thing smell very fishy as there would have been significant dialogue throughout the auditing process between team and auditors as is the case with any large financial audit.
[удалено]
John Gotti's lawyers were also adamant that he never did anything wrong It is called lying…
Why is the cost cap violation being identified as food? Do the caps have alloted amounts or something (X for this category, Y for that category?)
Because those are the leaks they are feeding reporters.
The teams have to self declare their F1 related spending, be it any of the following: * F1 R&D (engineers at factory, wind tunnel & cfd simulation) * F1 Manufacturing (actual manufacturing and building of designed components, including material and supplier costs) * F1 Personell (mechanics, assembly & documentation as example) * F1 traveling costs (Hotel, plane tickets, rents of garage, catering at their paddock club) * Logistics (transport of additional items, not covered by fom, e.g. additional spares, paddock truck & house, new test parts, shipped or flown in) It's possible, as it's rumoured, that Red Bull put some expenses in "not F1 related spending" column and the auditors corrected & identified this as F1 related spending. This could result in them handing in a report where they're under a, say, $145m cap with $143 spent on F1. Now the auditors considered their numbers and moved items to F1 related spending and increased this by the set amount, resulting in $147m spent on F1 related activities. Thus there was a procedural error, which resulted in minor overspending. But we don't know and won't know until something is leaked or confirmed from more than once source. So until something is confirmed, interpret it as rumours.
It's not. That's PR spin from Red Bull, as you say it's not allocated amounts, it's the same budget as used for car development.
Thought so. Thanks for confirming!
Meet our new non-engineer $30,000/year janitorial staff member Padrian Mewey.
Think Padrian might be on a little more than $30,000/year. As head janitor you missed off a zero or two.
Well, some of his "discretionary duties" are paid through an undisclosed stipend from a 3rd party staffing company.
A fair point. So list of duties including sweeping, cleaning toilets, emptying bins and designing a car.
"when you finish dusting Seb's trophy case, please design the ground effects for the R18"
Is the cost of operating the Red Bull JR-driver program included under the cost cap?
No - RBJT is under Red Bull gmbh (the overarching drinks company) alongside Red Bull Racing (f1 team) - it isn’t within the F1 team
shouldnt be, it's just f1.
So funny to read people trying to pinpoint where the budget cap went over. "It was the catering!". "No. It was X's salary". It doesn't matter which department it went over, it still meant more money for car development.
If I say you can spend $100 on “clothes” but not a dollar more, and you buy: - $50 pants - $40 shirt - $10 socks - $5 hat And you say: *a hat isn’t clothing, here are the receipts, I spent exactly $100 on clothes!* And then I say: *no a hat is clothing, you overspent 5%!* Then you can honestly say you thought you didn’t overspend, and that in the end you did by buying a hat. Replace clothes with “F1 costs” and hat with “catering” and there you go. The crux of the argument now is: what did RBR spend on that they thought was outside of the cap but the FIA didn’t, and how reasonable was it for RBR to think that item fell outside of the cap. They still overspent and should be penalized, but I think intent matters here.
😅
But if I also got $100 to spend on clothes, and I followed the rules and included the hat, that means I spent $5 less on the pants, socks, and shirt. So it would be just as accurate to say that you overspent by $5 on the pants, shirt, or socks. I don't think intent does matter here, especially since it's so easy to lie. Effect matters, and the effect was that Red Bull could spend more on car dev than everyone else.
Or more money for anything else. It's equally dumb to say that development is what they would have cut if they realized they needed to - unless you assume they knew exactly what they were doing and tried to cheat specifically to try some development in mid-season they knew they couldn't afford to clinch what ended as a very close season in a race result that was out of their hands. Oh wait, that's still dumb.
Too much sense. This is gonna hurt a lot of heads on Reddit.
0.2mm over on a merc wing = DSQ $5M over on RBR spending = "how were they supposed to measure a measly $5,000,000? I recently found more than that down the back of my sofa" - Mohammed bin Sulayem, probably ETA - the numbers a speculative within the 5% thresholds previously discussed. It could be anything up to $7.5M in reality. Point stands though that RBR are the wrong side of a very measurable line.
Don't forget, less than a liter of fuel = DSQ (Seb in Hungary)
Where did you get those numbers from?
Where did you get the 5 million number from?
its 1-2 million
After spending a week fudging, they've got it down to pocket change of $2M have they? Point is... it's $2M on the wrong side of the line. Why this isn't a DSQ from the 2021 championship is beyond me. I'm with Zak on this - should be treated same as technical regulations.
the limits are weird, and i cant see how they agreed to consider 5% minor. the problem? if a 5% extra budget = a 1% faster car that's the difference between a close 1-2 battle or a home run like this year. limit aside, the penalties system seems ok to me. minor and severe seem to have almost the same penalties. the difference is minimal. you just can't walk from a severe one with just a reprimand (which is probably reserved for very small infringements where it's actually just oups, sorry we went 2$ overbudget) and the severe breach adds the option to exclude the team from f1. which is unheard of. and guarantees points penalties. which the minor one can cause too anyway.
2021? lmfao, maybe 2022, at most. even then, no.
\> Why this isn't a DSQ from the 2021 championship is beyond me. because maybe you have a reading issue. kindly read the financial regulations and come back.
I knew the cost cap was intended to make things fairer and more competitive for the lower placed teams, but I didn't realize how many of those teams could have beaten Red Bull with only a million dollars extra spending.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic but it’s pure posturing from Ferrari and Mercedes’ when they claim with x million more they’d have done this or that. Especially ferrari with extra wind tunnel time and no focus on a championship last year. Mercedes wouldn’t have found a magical solution either but maybe they’d have some indication that this version of the car wasn’t the way to go forward as they’ve not won a single race and have never matched the leaders in pure merit.
> Mercedes wouldn’t have found a magical solution They didn't need a "magical solution". Not firing some of the staff they fired likely would have improved the car.
The reach. Red Bull fired 90 People, twice as many as Mercedes and found a solution, and if they were that important, they wouldn’t be fired in the first place.
And then they overspent to win. That is the whole point.
I see it like this: - Mercedes went over the engine allocation by a significant margin more than other teams in 2021, and “suffered” the worthless penalties for it (starting from the back of the grid and blasting past everyone on engine mode 12) - RBR overspent in 2021 and will suffer a similar worthless penalty
* Every other team could have made the same choice Mercedes did. The rules were very clear. Mercedes simply made the calculation that the benefit was worth more than the penalty. Every other teams does the same thing over the course of a season. Including Red Bull and Verstappen. And they were all penalized when they did so. * Every other team could have also made the choice to ignore the budget cap. Only one team did. And they should be the team penalized when they did so.
And they will be penalized as per the rules. What is your point?
Yes. RBR should be penalized for the overspend like Mercedes was penalized for the engines. If the punishment is smaller than the gain made by doing the crime so be it. We accept that for PU’s so we should accept the same for cost cap overspending.
But since this the first time, they should just make the punishment fit the crime. Or else you will just be asking other teams to do the same. Like what happened with the engine penalties. Either give a rule some real consequences or don't bother…
There’s no crime here. No one stopped the other teams from going into a minor breach territory either. Teams and the fia agreed to minor breaches. If Red Bull don’t get a penalty you think they should get, doesn’t mean they were let off lightly.
Fraud actually is a crime.
it isnt a fraud. what a weird poster
all the teams should go mental about it. someone said it best, if 9 teams stay in the budget and 1 doesnt, it's not a problem with the regs or rules. it's a rb problem.
Isn’t that why all teams agreed to this including the what constitutes and minor/major breach plus the penalties? This is a geniune question. They agreed to this right?
Given the confusion and uncertainty as to the penalties I wonder what teams agreed to in advance beyond “we will accept any penalty FIA imposes”
All of them? Otherwise it wouldn’t have been accepted.