FIA introduces £30m budget cap

[timbo]

Technically, it just may be a loophole. But ask yourself what would happen if the Ferrari budgeted team beat the "A" team? There would be emotional outbursts by Tifosi and those feel betrayed. As well, how can the team principals of the "A" team justify (in front of the Ferrari Board of Directors) asking for the same budget next year when it is known the budgeted team can win just as much, or even more?

But what if it is budgeted team under Scuderia label? Unrestricted team does all dirty work and restricted team enjoys unlimited engines and goodies like that.
Sum of budgets of both teams may even be lower than Ferrari has now but they would have more freedom as a whole.
I don't like such situation at all.

[Dukeage]

There's another factor in the political mess - it is the FIA presidential election. Will Max Mosley continue? Will FOTA agree on a single candidate? If FOTA agree on a single candidate, can they get them to usurp Spanky?

[WhiteBlue]

FOTA has no voice in the FIA elections. You have to found a touring or sporting club with some buddies and make an application for national recognition to get a voice. If you do that successfully (and some clubs have just 400 members like one Swiss Caravan club) you can become a voting memebr and have one of several hunded votes. For instance the AAA has just two votes with more than 50 mil members. The rules are arcane and Max has been playing by them for ages.

Nine months ago I did not think he would stand again, but now I'm not so sure any more. F1 is far from settled and I do not see Max leave it without the conviction that everything is sorted to his liking.

[Metar]

But what if it is budgeted team under Scuderia label? Unrestricted team does all dirty work and restricted team enjoys unlimited engines and goodies like that.
Sum of budgets of both teams may even be lower than Ferrari has now but they would have more freedom as a whole.
I don't like such situation at all.

The unrestricted, money-wise, team will be the one that won't be able to run full-size, full-speed tunnels, nor in-season testing...

[safeaschuck]

They won't need to even bother setting up B teams at least not for the first 2-3 years. Too messy, longwinded and difficult to set up and slow and expensive to wind down if the rules change back again, although those with existing relationships will certainly benefit more.

The reason the banks got away with murder for so long is because they have the cleverest people to cook the books.
If the FIA succeed in introducing a budget cap all it will do is divert money away from engineering and into accounting. Even if the teams have to be careful how much money they spend on accounting it could end up being more than in the past if nothing more than to be on the safe side, and I'm sure there is nothing better an accountant can hide than his own wages . Also the FIA will syphon off more revenue to pay for their contracted accountants to try and find out who is cheating the system within the teams.

FIA mandated accountants will come across this data, as evidence of cheating haphazardly, not necessarily their fault, they will probably be focusing more on the winning teams, in the same way as scrutineering is only mandatory for the top place finishers and random thereafter.
This will inevitably cause cries of fixing and bias, especially as Ferrari are unlikely to be audited as heavily as others given their current performance.

Well thats how I see it panning out anyway.

[xpensive]

It seems to me that MrM is handling the FIA pretty much like Samaranch dealt with the IOC, when he could get a majority by securing the votes from the likes of Kongo-Brazzaville and an empty promise not to seek another term, he was home.

Regarding the budget-cap, I agree completely with Montezemolo that it's opening a can of worms, in particular within FOTA, when it per definition will lead to internal differencies. But that might also be the general idea?

Formula one is a little different from the NBA, where I guess the budget is basically players and some travelling, but to believe it's possible to judge who did which development work at who's xpense in F1 is rather naive at best.

[Pingguest]

After the effective introduction of the budget cap, no much innovation should be expected then. I thought Formula 1 considered itself as the 'pinnacle of motorsports'?

[Shaddock]

I have a couple of thoughts on this topic and how it has evolved.

Firstly the idea of movable wings I think from a cost point of view is an excellent idea. Why will teams need to spend hours and millions of dollars in the wind tunnel honing their bargeboards and other aero parts to improve there drag to down force coefficients, when you can adjust the front & rear wings on the move. Hopefully this will make this expensive exercise pointless, due to the very small gains available.

Have the FIA considered have fast these cars will be? Over the past few years they have had a continuous program of tightening the restrictions to slow the cars down for safety reasons. Now, we have unlimited engine rpm, and moveable wings. The cars are effectively going to be running Monaco levels of down force through medium and fast corners (possibly ~50mph faster) and into the traction zone. The 120bhp of KERS plus 800+ from then engine will boost acceleration down the straight, and then the wings will go flatter than Keira Knightley, as the cars reach unheard of top speeds on the various circuits, until the next braking zone. If ever the rear wing servo fails and the wing does not revert to it’s high DF setting as the car enters the braking zone then the car will sail straight on into the scenery.

[Metar]

They'll still hone them to no end in an attempt to achieve even better figures. Sure, you can just increase the angle - but why not have that angle-increase be more effective by producing more downforce in the first place, for the same drag?

Indeed, though, next year's regulations will be unbelievably fast. We're already past 2008 speeds this year - with added downforce and power, will we reach (or break) 2004 records again?

[xpensive]

Perhaps we should not get ahead of ourselves here, even if you completely remove the rear-wing, remember that
a "1.0 Cv" cross-section of 1.0 meter by 0.2 meter, costs just a little more than 80 Hp at 290 km/h?

[Shaddock]

The cars are going to have close on 950bhp (with KERS) and capable of running down-force/drag levels lower than what they currently run at Monza or any 'power' circuit. These should be the fastest F1 cars of all time, and cornering speeds will be insanely high.

[machin]

As well, how can the team principals of the "A" team justify (in front of the Ferrari Board of Directors) asking for the same budget next year when it is known the budgeted team can win just as much, or even more?

... How much does Ferrari spend at the moment? Two "40 Million" teams developing one car is probably still less than they currently spend, and it would effectively give them twice the budget to develop one car..... If they let RBR and STR continue to use the same design house I can't see how this whole budget cap is going to work.......

[xpensive]

Indeed, why I would love every second of it. Remember 1985, when Piquet qualified his Brabham-BMW with 1300+ Hp?

[nudger]

also have to wonder what happens with existing contracts, like for example mclarens deal with force india, which i believe has another 4 years to run

[Ogami musashi]

I have a couple of thoughts on this topic and how it has evolved.

Firstly the idea of movable wings I think from a cost point of view is an excellent idea. Why will teams need to spend hours and millions of dollars in the wind tunnel honing their bargeboards and other aero parts to improve there drag to down force coefficients, when you can adjust the front & rear wings on the move. Hopefully this will make this expensive exercise pointless, due to the very small gains available.

It is true that if you keep this year lift to drag ratio the cars next year would be faster by decreasing the angle of attack of their wing.
But L/D ratio will always be important because what matters is the downforce you can produce.

I'm quite happy by that moveable thing, however the rear wing will have to be adjusted manually, i would have prefered it to be automatic especially in the case of overtaking.

But that's a good step.

Have the FIA considered have fast these cars will be? Over the past few years they have had a continuous program of tightening the restrictions to slow the cars down for safety reasons. Now, we have unlimited engine rpm, and moveable wings. The cars are effectively going to be running Monaco levels of down force through medium and fast corners (possibly ~50mph faster) and into the traction zone. The 120bhp of KERS plus 800+ from then engine will boost acceleration down the straight, and then the wings will go flatter than Keira Knightley, as the cars reach unheard of top speeds on the various circuits, until the next braking zone. If ever the rear wing servo fails and the wing does not revert to it’s high DF setting as the car enters the braking zone then the car will sail straight on into the scenery.

The FIA already planned in their 2011 framework the moveable wings and the effects relative to this year.
It was planned that 2009 cars were 5 seconds off 2007 times and 2011 cars would be only 3 seconds.
This year the cars are about the same as 2008 cars (they were faster at the begining but since two races the 2008 Q2 times were faster in 2008) so it is foreseen that 2010 cars will be hell faster in qualify.

I would love them to be faster like in 2004 yes.
Top speed would be faster and that would be great because nowadays moto gp are faster in straight line.