Formula 1

[charlierc]

68 days from the day this was announced, for comparison, is December 17th. So clearly, this has every potential to drag on quite a bit. Not least given the Williams case was fairly cut-and-dried - they were fined for late submission of accounts rather than anything nefarious.

Much as I'm aware the half-expected war of words is already in motion: Mercedes ready to breach F1 cost cap if Red Bull escapes strong sanction (f1i.com)

[DareToDibble]

I’ve just seen Quali is 11pm this Saturday!! Was expecting it to be 8pm like the race, what in the world. 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, charlierc said:

68 days from the day this was announced, for comparison, is December 17th. So clearly, this has every potential to drag on quite a bit. Not least given the Williams case was fairly cut-and-dried - they were fined for late submission of accounts rather than anything nefarious.

Much as I'm aware the half-expected war of words is already in motion: Mercedes ready to breach F1 cost cap if Red Bull escapes strong sanction (f1i.com)

I hope Merc breach the cap if RBR have no major penalty. Make a mockery of the cost cap and show top the sport for the joke it's become.

[charlierc]

On 10/16/2022 at 4:15 PM, DareToDibble said:

I’ve just seen Quali is 11pm this Saturday!! Was expecting it to be 8pm like the race, what in the world. 

Yeah I found that bizarre as well. I was expecting a 9pm start, given the end of qualifying is usually at the same sort of time a race finishes, yet they're doing FP3 as 8-9 instead.

[charlierc]

On 10/16/2022 at 11:05 PM, Ozanne said:

I hope Merc breach the cap if RBR have no major penalty. Make a mockery of the cost cap and show top the sport for the joke it's become.

I'm aware a harsh penalty is something people are calling for. Case in point - Red Bull budget cap breach 'constitutes cheating' - McLaren boss Zak Brown - BBC Sport

Suggestion cited in this article was not to strip away the 2021 titles, as some want, but harsh restrictions on both the 2023 cap and development, and that any future offences would trigger bigger punishments.

Some have suggested others in the paddock are on board with these as concepts. But it'll take a while to figure out - I think the fact Red Bull still dispute this complicates how long it'll take to reach a conclusion on this.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, charlierc said:

I'm aware a harsh penalty is something people are calling for. Case in point - Red Bull budget cap breach 'constitutes cheating' - McLaren boss Zak Brown - BBC Sport

Suggestion cited in this article was not to strip away the 2021 titles, as some want, but harsh restrictions on both the 2023 cap and development, and that any future offences would trigger bigger punishments.

Some have suggested others in the paddock are on board with these as concepts. But it'll take a while to figure out - I think the fact Red Bull still dispute this complicates how long it'll take to reach a conclusion on this.

So why in football were Rangers stripped of titles for cheating and not docked points from future seasons?

That idea is so stupid. 

[charlierc]

16 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

So why in football were Rangers stripped of titles for cheating and not docked points from future seasons?

That idea is so stupid. 

... except in the example of Rangers, that's not what happened. Rangers ended up where they were due to unsustainable debts, dubious accounting practices and bad owners rather than breaking a set-in-stone financial cap, plus they were also not stripped of any titles won in the last decade before they went bust and they were not docked points for their first season after going bust in spring 2012 either. Their situation covered parts of HMRC, corporate administration and liquidation laws, and a vote of the rest of the Scottish Premier League voting to throw them out when the Glasgow Rangers Football Club IP was transferred to a new company altogether. This is not the example to follow here.

The better example is what would happen if an NFL team broke the league's salary cap, though the most recent example (Minnesota Vikings were fined for breaking the 2019 cap) was punished with a fine and loss of NFL draft picks.

[Guest]

Just now, charlierc said:

... except in the example of Rangers, that's not what happened. Rangers ended up where they were due to unsustainable debts, dubious accounting practices and bad owners rather than breaking a set-in-stone financial cap, plus they were also not stripped of any titles won in the last decade before they went bust and they were not docked points for their first season after going bust in spring 2012 either. Their situation covered parts of HMRC, corporate administration and liquidation laws, and a vote of the rest of the Scottish Premier League voting to throw them out when the Glasgow Rangers Football Club IP was transferred to a new company altogether. This is not the example to follow here.

The better example is what would happen if an NFL team broke the league's salary cap, though the most recent example (Minnesota Vikings were fined for breaking the 2019 cap) was punished with a fine and loss of NFL draft picks.

Rangers cheated as did Juve and both were stripped of titles. Lance Armstrong cheated and was stripped of his titles. As should RBR.

A fine will do nothing. 

[charlierc]

2 hours ago, Ozanne said:

Rangers cheated as did Juve and both were stripped of titles. Lance Armstrong cheated and was stripped of his titles. As should RBR.

A fine will do nothing. 

But Rangers didn't lose titles or championships. They're totally the wrong example as what happened was more complicated than that.

Juventus and Lance Armstrong's cases were about deception. This, at least so far, is not. Though frankly we're drowning in speculation as to who's salary or catering or crash damage or exemptions or whatever means that the FIA and Red Bull came to different figures.

Only thing I'm willing to guess will happen for now is that at this weekend's US Grand Prix, it's going to be asked in the Team Principals press conference on Friday and will lead to a lot of arguing.

[charlierc]

17 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

It won’t be a fine… but it also won’t be lost championships…

the question is can they find a middle ground which won’t be an end the budget cap…

Well Zak Brown's suggestion is apparently one I've seen suggested - namely, taking away overspend equivalents from future budget caps and cutting down on a team's allowed CFD/wind-tunnel time, which Red Bull would already get less of due to them being top of the championship in 2022 and how these things are now allowed so on the new sliding scale getting even less. Some may find that a dissatisfactory outcome, sure, but when one weighs up the implications, it's still quite the stick to be hit with.

Transparency could well be useful here given the whole range of speculation I have seen about this and all manner of suggested reasons and punishments being floated. But then this is the FIA. I have seen one comment attributed to Mika Salo on Twitch about what exact conditions Ferrari were lumbered as a settlement over their illegal 2019 engine, but speculation really can create a vacuum with these things, not least given how dire the Ferrari engines were in 2020.

[DareToDibble]

On 10/18/2022 at 6:37 PM, charlierc said:

Yeah I found that bizarre as well. I was expecting a 9pm start, given the end of qualifying is usually at the same sort of time a race finishes, yet they're doing FP3 as 8-9 instead.

I invited my friend over to watch the football at 5:30, thinking as that finished we wouldn't be far away from Quali 😄 

[charlierc]

2 hours ago, DareToDibble said:

I invited my friend over to watch the football at 5:30, thinking as that finished we wouldn't be far away from Quali 😄 

On an ordinary day, you'd be on target with such a strategy tbf. I have no idea why the qualifying is that far back in the day - don't think it was at previous Austin rounds.

[charlierc]

So, looks like we might be hearing a bit more about this...

It is also worth noting Red Bull were initially planning a press conference today to discuss this but have reportedly now cancelled it pending talks between Horner and the FIA President.

So I guess we shall see in further detail soon enough what is gonna go down.

[Guest]

If someone commits a crime they can quite often discuss with the police/court about their punishment. It’s such a sham. 

[squirrelarmy]

53 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

If someone commits a crime they can quite often discuss with the police/court about their punishment. It’s such a sham. 

Actually quite common in the US. All about the plea bargaining. 
 

Still a joke though. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, squirrelarmy said:

Actually quite common in the US. All about the plea bargaining. 
 

Still a joke though. 

Fuck me, that is a joke.

All this just to protect Max Verstappen. 

[charlierc]

16 hours ago, Ozanne said:

If someone commits a crime they can quite often discuss with the police/court about their punishment. It’s such a sham. 

It's the process the FIA agreed upon with the teams. The nature is that the team accused of the breach and FIA would sit down first to talk about an "Accepted Breach Agreement" and if they don't, it goes to a panel to make a final ruling.

Early signs are that the FIA and Red Bull may agree to a final ruling and leave it there. But early days. There are photos of Christian Horner and the FIA President walking and talking through the paddock in Austin, but that's about it.

This, however, would be the same for everyone. Indeed, the ABA is how we found out Williams were being fined for their procedural breach for submitting accounts late. It's not some kind of sinister pro-Max conspiracy, especially given this is our first taste really of seeing how this would work in practice.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, charlierc said:

It's the process the FIA agreed upon with the teams. The nature is that the team accused of the breach and FIA would sit down first to talk about an "Accepted Breach Agreement" and if they don't, it goes to a panel to make a final ruling.

Early signs are that the FIA and Red Bull may agree to a final ruling and leave it there. But early days. There are photos of Christian Horner and the FIA President walking and talking through the paddock in Austin, but that's about it.

This, however, would be the same for everyone. Indeed, the ABA is how we found out Williams were being fined for their procedural breach for submitting accounts late. It's not some kind of sinister pro-Max conspiracy, especially given this is our first taste really of seeing how this would work in practice.

Oh come on mate, how much more do you need to see for the massively pro-Red Bill and Max agenda in F1? Everything the FIA does is to massage the rules in their favour and now they’ve broken the cost cap the FIA are literally trying everything they can to ensure that RBR don’t get much of penalty. 

[charlierc]

9 hours ago, Ozanne said:

Oh come on mate, how much more do you need to see for the massively pro-Red Bill and Max agenda in F1? Everything the FIA does is to massage the rules in their favour and now they’ve broken the cost cap the FIA are literally trying everything they can to ensure that RBR don’t get much of penalty. 

This you?

But in all seriousness, this isn't a defence. I did think a team could fall foul of this because this is the first time trying the cost cap as a serious concept, F1 teams have a reputation of pushing the envelope until it'll bend no more, and the FIA have made a cost cap with too many exemptions while at a time that they are getting so many of the basics wrong (as indeed we saw with the recovery truck at Suzuka, for which the FIA admitted in a full report yesterday they fucked up). For scale of how tight this is, Haas' team boss said they struggled to get everything to fit below the cap number, and pre-cap they had F1's smallest budget and workforce.

The new speculation is that Red Bull's first submission was under cap, then the rules were changed at some point this year after these were submitted and it took them over. But we're seeing so much fucking speculation on this that people are just believing what they want.

This would've been a messy situation if it was any other of F1's 9 teams, but it's just on top the fact there's a constituency that wants Verstappen's 2021 title discredited or taken away because there's still so much controversy from what happened in the last third of last season, so it's just pouring fuel on the fire even despite others saying there's no merit to stripping titles in this scenario (hell, Toto Wolff himself literally said today it makes no sense to revisit 2021 based on the evidence as we have it).

Edited October 22, 2022 by charlierc

[squirrelarmy]

35 minutes ago, charlierc said:

The new speculation is that Red Bull's first submission was under cap, then the rules were changed at some point this year after these were submitted and it took them over.

Which is the answer the FIA need to not disrupt the titles they’ve awarded and in their eyes not make themselves look like fools. 
 

It’s not some conspiracy to make sure Red Bull win. It’s about trying not to admit that the people behind the sport have made an absolute pigs ear of it the last few seasons. 

[Guest]

Nothing to see here either.

[charlierc]

12 hours ago, squirrelarmy said:

It’s not some conspiracy to make sure Red Bull win. It’s about trying not to admit that the people behind the sport have made an absolute pigs ear of it the last few seasons. 

It's pretty much on this. A lot of races in 2020 had questionable calls but as it had no real effect on the championship, it was easier to ignore, although one could argue the Mercedes' DAS system that made the car borderline unbeatable at times (especially on safety car restarts) and Racing Point's Pink Mercedes got off fairly lightly. 2021 was just madness, especially in the final weeks, and despite sacking Masi, they've spent their time this year finding more bear traps to stumble into. The governance is the issue, and it just inspires someone to push the envelope further than they would dare to do if the governance was stricter.

Hell the post above of the latest antics with track limits is another one - other motorsports have automated systems for track limit breaches, yet F1 seem to still be relying on humans to call it. Though imo not as bad as the farce in Austria when Perez breached the track limit on the lap that got him into Q3, then had to be disqualified from Q3 because the stewards hadn't initially spotted it.

I said it earlier in the thread - I think the cost cap is too generous with what is excluded. All the teams also now seem to think 5% is too high a tolerance, so this could equally be revisited.

[Guest]

I think they should get rid of the cost cap, F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport but they limit what the teams can do with the cost cap. The cap will never bring teams like Williams to the front and if it’s not going to be enforced anyway then it’s pointless.

[charlierc]

1 hour ago, Ozanne said:

I think they should get rid of the cost cap, F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport but they limit what the teams can do with the cost cap. The cap will never bring teams like Williams to the front and if it’s not going to be enforced anyway then it’s pointless.

I support it in principle - if you have unrestricted spending, you just have Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari winning every year and everyone else risking bankruptcy to keep up. Those 3 have budgets and workforces to wipe the floor with everyone else, and as happened in 2017 during the last big car design rule change, they've all just got faster cars than everyone else and could keep the podium spots to themselves, even with 1/2 DNFs. But the way this is being structured feels half-arsed and open to teams taking the piss. There's too many teething problems with it's initial arrival. At the very least, and as I've already said, I'd raise the figure but reduce the exemptions, and tbf, the ceiling was originally going to be about $30M higher only for smaller teams to object.

[Guest]

The coverage comes alive when MV is race leader, he's practically the only car we see and the GLEE in the commentators voice when he took the lead is a joke. Last few years they moaned all the time when Merc won races but now it's MV & RBR it's all perfectly fine.

Ah well at least Hamilton got 2nd place I suppose.