Porpoising, what if?

[MarkwG]

Teppic said:

wpa1975 said:

Horner at it again: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/horner...

Reading between the lines - Red bull are dangerously close to, or have already exceeded, the cost cap and desperately want it increased so that they aren't disqualified at the end of the season.

Interesting - I wonder if they were hoping for a Brawn style early sprint into the distance season strategy, leaving the opposition trying to catch up. That worked when you could through money at the problem...

[Adrian W]

MarkwG said:

Teppic said:

wpa1975 said:

Horner at it again: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/horner...

Reading between the lines - Red bull are dangerously close to, or have already exceeded, the cost cap and desperately want it increased so that they aren't disqualified at the end of the season.

Interesting - I wonder if they were hoping for a Brawn style early sprint into the distance season strategy, leaving the opposition trying to catch up. That worked when you could through money at the problem...

If it was true would ge really say this in public?

[MarkwG]

Adrian W said:

MarkwG said:

Teppic said:

wpa1975 said:

Horner at it again: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/horner...

Reading between the lines - Red bull are dangerously close to, or have already exceeded, the cost cap and desperately want it increased so that they aren't disqualified at the end of the season.

Interesting - I wonder if they were hoping for a Brawn style early sprint into the distance season strategy, leaving the opposition trying to catch up. That worked when you could through money at the problem...

If it was true would ge really say this in public?

Who knows - even if it was their thinking, there's no point owning up, but they appear to have a problem they want to address publicly in some way. It's the usual F1 smoke & mirrors tricks, I expect.

[Siao]

MarkwG said:

Teppic said:

wpa1975 said:

Horner at it again: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/horner...

Reading between the lines - Red bull are dangerously close to, or have already exceeded, the cost cap and desperately want it increased so that they aren't disqualified at the end of the season.

Interesting - I wonder if they were hoping for a Brawn style early sprint into the distance season strategy, leaving the opposition trying to catch up. That worked when you could through money at the problem...

Brawn literally had no money to throw at any problem...

[Sandpit Steve]

Siao said:

Brawn literally had no money to throw at any problem...

Yes, Brawn had exactly the opposite problem - he’d almost bankrupted himself to get the cars to the first race, and had to make a lot of redundancies. He couldn’t afford to develop it, and it was from the fastest car by the end of the season but they scraped the championship win.

Red Bull, on the other hand, have an almost unlimited amount of money and are not allowed to spend it. The suggestion is that they’ve overspent early in the year, and now can’t develop the car.

[vaud]

Sandpit Steve said:

Yes, Brawn had exactly the opposite problem - he’d almost bankrupted himself to get the cars to the first race, and had to make a lot of redundancies. He couldn’t afford to develop it, and it was from the fastest car by the end of the season but they scraped the championship win.

He didn't "almost bankrupt" himself. His deal with his wife was not to lose the house, etc... IIRC Honda maintained an initial cash injection to cover redundancies, etc, and then it was very much race by race with individual sponsors. So it was very tight, but I don't think he was personally exposed.

(He talked about it on a Motorsport podcast some years ago)

[TypeRTim]

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

[snuffleupagus]

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

i'd rather go over budget this year to fix the car in time for next year

unless the fine comes out of next years budget? i can't recall the terms

[TypeRTim]

snuffleupagus said:

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

i'd rather go over budget this year to fix the car in time for next year

unless the fine comes out of next years budget? i can't recall the terms

If the fine was outside of any budget caps (either present or next year) then there's no real incentive for the top teams to stay within budget as they will be able to afford the fine easily. There must be some other consequences ie: WCC points deductions.

[Siao]

Sandpit Steve said:

Siao said:

Brawn literally had no money to throw at any problem...

Yes, Brawn had exactly the opposite problem - he’d almost bankrupted himself to get the cars to the first race, and had to make a lot of redundancies. He couldn’t afford to develop it, and it was from the fastest car by the end of the season but they scraped the championship win.

Red Bull, on the other hand, have an almost unlimited amount of money and are not allowed to spend it. The suggestion is that they’ve overspent early in the year, and now can’t develop the car.

I know, the end result is the same, strong start and then managing till the end. I was just questioning the "throwing money at the problem" part. That wasn't the case at all in 2009. They managed to get a good lead and then scraped to the end. They would parade a third (redundant) chassis with them, not being able to be used at all, just so the other teams wouldn't clock that they had ran out of money. Their chassis were the same all year round, by the end they lost so much performance as they were beaten up race after race.

[Sandpit Steve]

snuffleupagus said:

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

i'd rather go over budget this year to fix the car in time for next year

unless the fine comes out of next years budget? i can't recall the terms

There’s severe sporting penalties for busting the budget cap - up to and including expulsion from the Championship.

Even a minor technical breach, will likely come with points deductions sufficient to drop championship positions, with associated loss of prize money. It’s definitely not something that might be used tactically.

[MarkwG]

Siao said:

MarkwG said:

Teppic said:

wpa1975 said:

Horner at it again: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/horner...

Reading between the lines - Red bull are dangerously close to, or have already exceeded, the cost cap and desperately want it increased so that they aren't disqualified at the end of the season.

Interesting - I wonder if they were hoping for a Brawn style early sprint into the distance season strategy, leaving the opposition trying to catch up. That worked when you could through money at the problem...

Brawn literally had no money to throw at any problem...

I realise that - it's the principle of trying to steal a march on the opposition & so getting far enough ahead they struggle to catch up that I was alluding to.

[HustleRussell]

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

I don't know how much they will have spent. They had had incremental developments but no major upgrade package until Silverstone.

They have also finished every race with both cars. I can't remember either of the drivers knocking a corner off. No mechanical failures.

It has looked to me as though they have basically expended a lot of energy into 'understanding' it and have not yet committed a significant amount to 'fixing' it.

What if Ferrari and Red Bull have simply overspent and Mercedes' performance is because they have strategically chosen a flatter development curve where they study and experiment with their first iteration car, ensure it is reliable and plan to take their major developments deeper into the season when they are able to fully understand them and execute them with confidence.

Ferrari and Red Bull have both blown up a good few PUs.

I don't think Mercedes are mugs. I predicted at the start of the season that they would be a factor by the start of European leg of the season. Could they have played it very cool and rigidly executed a conservative strategy which avoids reliability problems and budget dramas?

[Leithen]

HustleRussell said:

I don't think Mercedes are mugs. I predicted at the start of the season that they would be a factor by the start of European leg of the season. Could they have played it very cool and rigidly executed a conservative strategy which avoids reliability problems and budget dramas?

Nope.

[mat205125]

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

The fact that they are relatively quiet on the topic, and not contradicting Horner, speaks volumes

[Adrian W]

HustleRussell said:

I don't think Mercedes are mugs. I predicted at the start of the season that they would be a factor by the start of European leg of the season. Could they have played it very cool and rigidly executed a conservative strategy which avoids reliability problems and budget dramas?

If the rules get enforced rigidly it's not a bad strategy.

[PhilAsia]

"Champagne taste on a beer budget" - if Red Bull have overspent and not budgeted in inflation then that is the season they get.

Same for other teams.

At the end of the season it would be great to see McLaren/Alpine/Williams reeling Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes in and overhauling them on the last lap of the last race. A legal win due to the inability to budget. Tortoise and the hare.

[wpa1975]

Horner still at it: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/horner-warns-of-...

[PhilAsia]

wpa1975 said:

Horner still at it: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/horner-warns-of-...

Did poaching (not sure if this is the case) MB personnel increase their budget? Now it seems they have to choose not to pay those personnel according to the bleating of Horner.

You said you had a choice: personnel or parts.

If you put premium on the personnel pay them. If you put a premium on the parts, fk the personnel and buy the parts. Your choice in the business you oversee.

[Sandpit Steve]

PhilAsia said:

Did poaching (not sure if this is the case) MB personnel increase their budget? Now it seems they have to choose not to pay those personnel according to the bleating of Horner.

You said you had a choice: personnel or parts.

If you put premium on the personnel pay them. If you put a premium on the parts, fk the personnel and buy the parts. Your choice in the business you oversee.

The M-B personnel poached were from the PowerTrains team, who operate independently of the budget cap. They are setting up the RBPT 2026 project from scratch, once Honda properly withdraw.

I suspect that Red Bull Racing the team, are going to be looking for non-F1 projects for a lot of their design and aero staff in the second half of this year. They’ve kept too many people developing the car, and can’t afford to pay them (to do F1 work) in the second half.

It would be hillarious if they end up putting hundreds of staff on paid leave (they’re not short of actual money to pay salaries), unable to make the car go faster, as it gets relatively slower to the competition at the end of the season.

Mercedes F1 hired a FTSE-100 Chief Financial Officer once the budget cap was announced. I’m not sure that RBR did.