2021 Cost Cap Breaches

2021 Cost Cap Breaches

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Discussion

Leithen

Original Poster:

10,800 posts

266 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
The Race is reporting that it is believed that Red Bull and possibly Aston Martin broke the cost cap in 2021.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/red-bull-one-of-two...

That should throw some more fuel on the fire of the season results given there doesn't appear to be any set penalty.

PhilAsia

3,697 posts

74 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Leithen said:
The Race is reporting that it is believed that Red Bull and possibly Aston Martin broke the cost cap in 2021.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/red-bull-one-of-two...

That should throw some more fuel on the fire of the season results given there doesn't appear to be any set penalty.
Yes, but all RB's overspend was on Perez's car not Verstappen's fortunately. biggrin

MustangGT

11,555 posts

279 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
I would consider a 10 point deduction for both WCC and the leading driver in the WDC, all in the year concerned with a fine equal to the overspend to be fair.

jester

Of course, not possible since it would materially affect last year's manipulated result.

carl_w

9,154 posts

257 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
AM seems to have wasted their overspend then.

KaraK

13,177 posts

208 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
There will be a lot of finger wagging, perhaps a fine and a sternly worded e-mail or two and then they'll come up with a proper penalty for it in the future. The time lapse between the season and the filing of the budget reports makes applying actual sporting penalties for that year untenable.

Ironically if you were going to breach the cap then last year was the year to do it - the huge cost of developing to the new regs while still having to develop the dead-end of last years car meant that the potential rewards for doing so were massive and the newness of the cap and lack of a defined penalty/precedent for breaching it means the risks were the lightest as well.

While it's not been confirmed that RBR and AM are the teams in breach it wouldn't surprise me. Everyone was scratching their head during last year with the constant stream of upgrades that RB were bringing given the knowledge that development for '22 had to be occurring as well and then when they rocked up at the start of this season with one of the most maturely developed and quick cars it doesn't really add up. AM had two radically different concepts in mature stages of development - and that can't be cheap, they also had very little to lose getting dinged for breaching the cap in '21 would be nothing compared to the potential long-term dividends from getting a leg up on the next reg era.

Most of the other teams who would theoretically have the resources to overspend you can see visible effects of likely compliance with the cap:

Merc - the floor development is, visibly immature compared with e.g. RBR, particularly early on in '22. Similarly for the rear wing.

Ferrari - they abandoned the '21 car early which allowed for so much resource to be thrown at the '22 car.

McLaren - the front-brake SNAFU for '22 points to compromises in where development resources were allocated, and the time it took them to even start making real performance upgrades in '22 was massive which suggests that things weren't already in the pipeline (unlike AM)





Edited by KaraK on Friday 30th September 11:08

//j17

4,471 posts

222 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
KaraK said:
There will be a lot of finger wagging, perhaps a fine and a sternly worded e-mail or two and then they'll come up with a proper penalty for it in the future.
Or just a mysterious "The issue has been resolved" missive like the Ferrari fuel 'nobody did anything wrong but Ferrari have changed their car and it's now slower' thing.

KaraK

13,177 posts

208 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
carl_w said:
AM seems to have wasted their overspend then.
If you look a the pre-cap era at least success in F1 required a big spend, but a big spend didn't always guarantee success. You only have to look at Toyota - they spent money like it was going out of fashion.

Arguably AM "wasted" all the spend on the initially used '22 car (which is believed to have been developed concurrently with the B-spec concept) - it wasn't fast certainly, but that doesn't mean it didn't cost a boatload of money.

carinaman

21,222 posts

171 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Andrew Benson on about it on Singapore coverage. He's done an article on BBC website about it.

It's turning me off.

Fundoreen

4,180 posts

82 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
makes sense if you spent 20million over you get 20million less the next year. But its F1 so will be some sort of bullst.

PhilAsia

3,697 posts

74 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
F20CN16 said:
KaraK said:
There will be a lot of finger wagging, perhaps a fine and a sternly worded e-mail or two and then they'll come up with a proper penalty for it in the future. The time lapse between the season and the filing of the budget reports makes applying actual sporting penalties for that year untenable.
I see it the opposite way. Easier to change an older result that no one is currently focused on. RB have had the PR and all other benefits from winning* the WDC last year now.

And, if there has been a serious breach they must enforce it somehow or everyone is going to break it. DSQing RB this year would be far more controversial for a breach in a different season.
Applying the sporting penalties for the year when the sporting rules were manipulated illegally seems reasonable to me. I keep getting told to get over it, so am sure the correct result of a season without a WDC* will be easy to swallow...

jules_s

4,237 posts

232 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
So a 'minor breach' is up to 5%

That makes the budget 105% then

satfinal

2,622 posts

161 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Cost cap is not part of sporting or technical regulations! It is part of financial regulations. They are distinctly different things.

mk1coopers

1,199 posts

151 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
As others have said, if it's proved, there should be a substantial penalties retrospectively applied, they need to be of a type that will deter the teams from doing it.

Having said that, F1 history shows that if a penalty is applied it will be constructed in a way that doesn't materially alter the results from previous races / Championships.

LankyMcTally

303 posts

96 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Other sports governing bodies take costs caps and deliberate breaches of them seriously. Just ask any Saracens fan...

... but this is F1, so I anticipate a minor financial penalty. It is a nonsense to impose a financial penalty for a financial overspend because in the future that will simply become part of the benefit:risk analysis carried out when any team decides to exceed the cap in order to win. I imagine that will have been what happened in 2021. The FIA has form for nonsense decisions so it's silly of me to expect them not to do just that.

On the other hand, they could grow a backbone. The FIA has been gifted an opportunity to neutralise the issues and fan debate that remains concerning the final lap of 2021 fiasco by docking points sufficient to place MV second in the WDC as punishment for RBR breaking the rules by £millions (which can't be done other than knowingly), thus removing the FIA/Masi from having impacted upon the outcome of the championship despite the safety car f*ck up.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
if only they’d spent less time worrying about driver’s jewellery and more time looking at spreadsheets….

Leithen

Original Poster:

10,800 posts

266 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Given that Ferrari have already questioned Red Bull's ability to afford to continually update this years car, the FIA must find themselves in something of a bind.

One years breach might be something that could be dealt with a slapped wrist, fine etc. But two consecutive breaches by the same team, where championships were won with the car will just make a mockery of the whole cap arrangement.

I would disqualify from the championship retrospectively - any cost overrun will offer an unfair advantage. I'd also impose fines - whatever the cost of overrun, has to then be paid to all the other teams. Go over by $5M, it's going to cost you $45M.

Jasandjules

69,825 posts

228 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
My understanding from my inside line in the FIA is that if RB have gone any more than 20% over, the Mercedes and Ferrari teams will be required to give them 10% of their budget next season so they can fairly spend the same this season without going over....

trackdemon

12,149 posts

260 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
Jasandjules said:
My understanding from my inside line in the FIA is that if RB have gone any more than 20% over, the Mercedes and Ferrari teams will be required to give them 10% of their budget next season so they can fairly spend the same this season without going over....
This doesn't make sense at all; I'm guessing you mean RB have to give 10% each to Ferrari & MB.... wink

Altrezia

8,517 posts

210 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
trackdemon said:
This doesn't make sense at all; I'm guessing you mean RB have to give 10% each to Ferrari & MB.... wink
I think he was joking because of the FIA Bias towards RB smile

Niponeoff

2,074 posts

26 months

Friday 30th September 2022
quotequote all
KaraK said:
There will be a lot of finger wagging, perhaps a fine and a sternly worded e-mail or two and then they'll come up with a proper penalty for it in the future. The time lapse between the season and the filing of the budget reports makes applying actual sporting penalties for that year untenable.

Ironically if you were going to breach the cap then last year was the year to do it - the huge cost of developing to the new regs while still having to develop the dead-end of last years car meant that the potential rewards for doing so were massive and the newness of the cap and lack of a defined penalty/precedent for breaching it means the risks were the lightest as well.

While it's not been confirmed that RBR and AM are the teams in breach it wouldn't surprise me. Everyone was scratching their head during last year with the constant stream of upgrades that RB were bringing given the knowledge that development for '22 had to be occurring as well and then when they rocked up at the start of this season with one of the most maturely developed and quick cars it doesn't really add up. AM had two radically different concepts in mature stages of development - and that can't be cheap, they also had very little to lose getting dinged for breaching the cap in '21 would be nothing compared to the potential long-term dividends from getting a leg up on the next reg era.

Most of the other teams who would theoretically have the resources to overspend you can see visible effects of likely compliance with the cap:

Merc - the floor development is, visibly immature compared with e.g. RBR, particularly early on in '22. Similarly for the rear wing.

Ferrari - they abandoned the '21 car early which allowed for so much resource to be thrown at the '22 car.

McLaren - the front-brake SNAFU for '22 points to compromises in where development resources were allocated, and the time it took them to even start making real performance upgrades in '22 was massive which suggests that things weren't already in the pipeline (unlike AM)





Edited by KaraK on Friday 30th September 11:08
I like the way you just glossed over the fact that Mercedes also had a two car concept. That couldn't have been cheap, even if it didn't work.