I hope Williams get it right , who they choose to partner Alex . Gasly to Alpine also confirmed . That could get spicy !
Call me a cynic, but I expect the certification to be delayed again if Verstappen doesn’t get the crown today, which looks unlikely with the weather!
The results need to be stood over irrespective and auditable etc. They cannot fake nor positive the results of what should be a very clear final number per team. If they are haggling over what is budget and what is not for last season still then its not a budget is it?
It’s not going to be clear, which is why there have been clarifications since the submissions. I saw Toto say yesterday, that they have moved interviews for engineering jobs from Senior Engineers (inside the cap) to HR (outside the cap). Does that mean that another team can bill the hours that an engineer spends interviewing, outside the cap or not? If the person at Merc is an Engineer who moved to HR, how does anyone know they are no longer doing any engineering etc. I suspect the whole thing is a house of cards. Spending has been reined in by the fact that the teams are now being monitored, but if someone breaches the claim and counter claim that will ensue will tear the whole thing apart. A cynic would say that Merc and Ferrari - the two teams who have lost the most as a result of the cap - know this and that’s the unspoken part of their angst,
I can only presume that wolff admitting that they were playing the game just as much as anyone. I would expect that they were booking supervisory hours (leading meetings or doing performance reviews or whatever with direct subordinates) as hr hours. Basically any hour done working on the car directly was booked to budget and any hour talking about work wasn't. I doubt anyone can prove if Adrian newey (for example) was working on design or merely supervising those working on design <LAUGH> Only time will tell but I suspect that unless something is obviously egregious a breach everyone will be certified for last season. Nobody seems to.mention this but if redbull were found to have a material breach here then Mercedes have been setting up for a law suit to get points taken off
So Aston Martin committing a procedural offence, will likely get a fine as Williams did for a procedural offence at the time of submission. Red Bull overspent by less than 5%, so also expected to get a fine. If its a pure fine and has no impact on their 2022 budget (or 2023 if it's too late already) then I think the FIA have just set a cost of doing business.
The other teams are obviously all under budget by some small amount. Aston must be under but ****ed up filling in a simple form Redbull must be at most 7.25million over budget. This is why Hamilton was sent out last weekend to talk about car parts for small amounts thst would have won him races etc. I can only presume a law suit will come in from mercedes as they've been playing the game for a while to set this up.
If it is truely a minor overspend, then I think a sane punishment would something like a 10% reduction in their 2023 budget. Anything without some kind of performance implication will just make 104.9% the new cap. They could go for suspended disqualification but then any team in a title fight will take a tactical yellow card every couple of years.
By the sound of it Red Bull's 'minor' breach will almost result in zero punishment! All they have to do is agree to an 'Acceptance Breach Agreement' and then they can't lose any drivers or constructors points or a reduction in subsequent years budget cap!!! They can only get a fine, a public reprimand or limits on aero or other testing! Once again FIA are spineless - any breach of the cap must have a penalty not just a fee for 'doing business'! I think for a minor breach losing 10% CFD or Tunnel time for the next 2 years would be more appropriate! If they overspend in 1 year those gains may carry forward so the restrictions need to cover 2 years minimum! Horner is maintaining that they went over by giving staff free lunch!!!! So that's £10 a day for 1000 staff with 220 days attendance = about £2million!!! I read that 'staff benefits' are not included so I would have thought staff lunches were a staff benefit? That said I bet every team was scrutinising the financial rules the same way as they do with tech regs to find holes - anyone with any sense would!
Unsurprising tactics from Red Bull, claim the overspend is for something trivial or reasonable like catering, sick cover, etc so it would be a travesty if it had a sporting impact. Of course, the only reason the catering expenditure has put them over budget is because they've spent money elsewhere. There's zero tolerance given when it's a question of whether the car conforms to the regulation, it should be the same here.
This. Again the FIA are leaving the door wide open for misinterpretation and fueling divide and speculation. I want to know how much they were over. What caused it to go over. And why Mercedes knew they were over before it was announced.
I'm not bothered how much they went over, a rule is a rule. They breached the cap and as long as the rules were interpreted correctly by FIA then the amount over doesn't matter it just depends on if its minor or major breach. It's a bit like track limits, when they set them, it doesn't matter if it's a matter if you are 1mm over the line or 20meters either way lap time is excluded. Other teams knowing the results before hand is iffy - I think it was reported in press before Merc were saying anything publicly. The only mitigation is it's the first year the cap has been used so maybe there should be some leniency if going over was due to a grey area although if there was a grey area and Red Bull exploited it then it's sort of the FIA's fault. I thought that they were supposed to run a test budget cap during 2020 but I guess Covid messed up that plan - so I sort have a little bit of sympathy for Red Bull but we all know how far all the teams push the rules....
This was always going to be the problem with budget caps. They can be manipulated creatively, and if one of the big hitters breaks the cap, the sport is never going to retrospectively punish them for breaking the cap. Now if one of the smaller teams goes way over, you can bet that they'll get their botty slapped very quickly. I think they need to admit this is going to be almost impossible to police and drop the caps, or mete out severe punishment for breaking it, otherwise it's absolutely pointless. I'd love to know how much each team is over the cap if you could identify every instance of creative accounting they have employed.
The more I think about the cap the more I think it's not the best way to try and level the playing field. Maybe there should maybe a limit on the number of different designs on each component they are allowed - like 5 different front wing designs, 3 different floor designs etc per season.
I think the only way they really reign it in is to make it more of a spec series, but that's not what F1 is. I don't think there is a way to make the playing field completely level, but what would be nice is if the regs were looser to allow a bit more freedom in design. Sometimes a clever bit of innovation is way more valuable than a big wallet.
I think we need to first understand if all the other teams are "charging" for lunch. If red bull are the only ones giving free lunches then the rest of the paddock need to be shown that there's no such thing as a free lunch via a massive fine How far over are they and does it constitute a.new floor that won them the championship?
