"Shadow CFD": How easy is it to bypass the FIA?
Discussion
I’ve been thinking about a hypothetical scenario regarding the current CFD and ATR (Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions) regulations.
We know the FIA strictly monitors compute and storage for CFD analysis, whether it’s on-site or in the cloud. The penalties are massive—potentially total exclusion from the championship.
But at a practical, "boots on the ground" level, how enforceable is this really?
The Reality of Modern Compute
The software isn't some "secret sauce" locked in a vault; much of it is open-source or based on widely available software. Furthermore, the barrier to entry for hardware is lower than ever. You can build a cluster on AWS quickly and eaasily.
The "Shadow" Workflow
What is actually stopping a team engineer—or to add a layer of obfuscation, a contractor who then hires a sub-contractor—from doing the following:
We know the FIA strictly monitors compute and storage for CFD analysis, whether it’s on-site or in the cloud. The penalties are massive—potentially total exclusion from the championship.
But at a practical, "boots on the ground" level, how enforceable is this really?
The Reality of Modern Compute
The software isn't some "secret sauce" locked in a vault; much of it is open-source or based on widely available software. Furthermore, the barrier to entry for hardware is lower than ever. You can build a cluster on AWS quickly and eaasily.
The "Shadow" Workflow
What is actually stopping a team engineer—or to add a layer of obfuscation, a contractor who then hires a sub-contractor—from doing the following:
- Data Egress: Taking the geometry/mesh data out via a USB or secure upload. While there’s an audit trail for egress, those logs can be "cleaned" or redacted if you have the right people in IT on board. Or use a phone to take pictures of the model/bluetooth it to a phone.
- Anonymization: Stripping the data of any "Team X" identifiers so it just looks like generic aerospace research.
- Private Compute: Running the analysis on a private, highly secure cloud instance or a home-built rig that the FIA has zero visibility into.
- Plausible Deniability: If they ever got caught, they could pull a "Benetton 1994" (the hidden LC menu). They could hide behind layers of technical obfuscation or simply blame a "rogue contractor" acting without the team’s knowledge.
I've always wondered what prevents Ferrari from getting a guy started on the F1 aero division, then mid season moving them to the roadcar aero division to apply some F1 learnings there (which they advertise that they do as much as possible)... and then that guy essentially carries on figuring out F1 problems, or at least keeps on thing about F1 problems and chatting away about possible solutions with their friends that still work on the F1 side.
I don't see how it's possible to create a watertight seal between the two divisions when there is nothing to stop people moving from one to the other and no way stopping people chatting about their work in their spare time. As we all do with friends and family involved in similar work.
I don't see how it's possible to create a watertight seal between the two divisions when there is nothing to stop people moving from one to the other and no way stopping people chatting about their work in their spare time. As we all do with friends and family involved in similar work.
I think the answer lies in the forensic financial auditing of both the teams and their suppliers.
The loophole I’ve always thought of was the three expensive people rule, whereby a team’s top three salaries are excluded from the cost cap. So, for example, the team pays “Nerian Adwey Consulting Ltd” £100m per year, ostibsibly for the services of one individual and outside the cost cap, and that company then hires a whole team of designers and engineers behing the scenes.
But the FIA accountants apparently got there first, and they demand formal accounts from suppliers alongside sworn statements regarding secondary contracting and intellectual property.
Don’t start on the £100k/year chef, who just happens to have a masters in aeronautical engineering.
The loophole I’ve always thought of was the three expensive people rule, whereby a team’s top three salaries are excluded from the cost cap. So, for example, the team pays “Nerian Adwey Consulting Ltd” £100m per year, ostibsibly for the services of one individual and outside the cost cap, and that company then hires a whole team of designers and engineers behing the scenes.
But the FIA accountants apparently got there first, and they demand formal accounts from suppliers alongside sworn statements regarding secondary contracting and intellectual property.
Don’t start on the £100k/year chef, who just happens to have a masters in aeronautical engineering.
TheDeuce said:
I've always wondered what prevents Ferrari from getting a guy started on the F1 aero division, then mid season moving them to the roadcar aero division to apply some F1 learnings there (which they advertise that they do as much as possible)... and then that guy essentially carries on figuring out F1 problems, or at least keeps on thing about F1 problems and chatting away about possible solutions with their friends that still work on the F1 side.
I don't see how it's possible to create a watertight seal between the two divisions when there is nothing to stop people moving from one to the other and no way stopping people chatting about their work in their spare time. As we all do with friends and family involved in similar work.
While they can't stop people moving jobs or chatting between different departments, the FIA have at least thought of the issue. Anyone who works even a partial year within an F1 department will be charged as a full year against the cost cap if they transfer sideways to a non-F1 department in the same organisation.I don't see how it's possible to create a watertight seal between the two divisions when there is nothing to stop people moving from one to the other and no way stopping people chatting about their work in their spare time. As we all do with friends and family involved in similar work.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of auditing agreement with the software providers, given the limited number of high-end CFD programmes. It's not as easy these days to get a dodgy copy of something like that, and wouldn't be hard to audit the licence use to see if Geoff from the aero department is using it at home when he shouldn't be.
The deterrent is supposed to be the risk of being found out, plus the potential consequences.
I doubt that a rogue file can suddenly appear on the team’s cloud server, the real team run analysis in the wind tunnel and pass things through to production.
I guess that they start by building the basic chassis and add components to the model. So that model would then need to be passed to a third party for them to play with and add aero components. I think it would be simpler to keep it in-house so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
I doubt that a rogue file can suddenly appear on the team’s cloud server, the real team run analysis in the wind tunnel and pass things through to production.
I guess that they start by building the basic chassis and add components to the model. So that model would then need to be passed to a third party for them to play with and add aero components. I think it would be simpler to keep it in-house so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
LivLL said:
I may be wrong but isn't this how Moto GP ended up with wings all over some teams bikes? Or was that mutual wind tunnel time?
Bit different. In Moto GP, Dorna don't make the rules, the teams do. And every team has to agree to a change. Ducati simply went nuts with the aero, refused to ban it, so everyone had to follow suit.With regard to F1, I'd assume theres a lot of analysis going on behind the scenes with individual elements / sub-contractors, which gets brought together under the official modelling regime. Easier to police full runs of the entire car.
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