Stu wrote: ↑16 Oct 2022, 11:40
McL-H wrote: ↑16 Oct 2022, 10:08
This sport has seen cars be disqualified for wings that were a mm too wide, for having too much fuel flow for only 1 second during a whole race.
If Red Bull is not disqualified after this, F1 cannot be taken seriously anymore. Not only would it be unfair to any team that was previously punished for slight rule breaches. They would give fiat for just breaching any rule out there in the future.
If the FIA is serious about the cost cap this is the time to prove it and set a very very clear precedent.
The difference is that the things in your first paragraph could be classed as categorically pre-meditated.
RedBull (and any team in the future that breaks any of the caps - budget, wind-tunnel/Tera-flops, testing, engine use), require a fitting punishment. All of those except the budget cap would be premeditated, to plan to exceed the budget cap would be the same; whereas discovering that it has been breached by a misinterpretation/differing interpretation is questionable as far as premeditation is concerned.
Maybe teams should be compelled to submit a budget forecast ahead of the season (this could remain sealed until the full accounts are submitted and reviewed).
I understand your point but I don’t think that I agree that motive should play a role in the penalty’s that are given out. And while a mm too large wing could indeed be classified as pre-meditated, the race Renault was disqualified for one of their cars going over a bump at Singapore that offset the fuel flow leading to a short increase in power, was not pre-meditated. But they were disqualified regardless. Very harsh, but very clear as well.
I don’t believe having teams hand in their financial forecast at the start of the season and keeping it sealed would make it possible to detect any pre-meditated breach of the budget cap. You would just hand in a 145M forecast and later explain it ended up being 152M due to unforeseen circumstances. I work as Controller in the public sector, and in fact that’s how most public organisations operate. We need to have our budget plans audited and accepted by government oversight. But budget plans in the public sector are often entirely fictional, having low correlation to actual realisation, year-in, year-out. However, since public entities mostly undercut the budget instead of overcutting it, nobody seems to care. That is different in F1, but method would end up being the same in what you proposed.
I believe the only way to enforce the budget cap is by enforcing it in a very strict manner with pre-determined consequences. You could include in the rules an acceptable percentage error to the budget cap in case teams go slightly over it by mistake (maybe 1,0 to 1,5%). But any above that should lead to very harsh penalties and in my perception, disqualification is the only suitable penalty. Why? Because that’s the penalty that’s given for any breach of technical regulations as well. And more lenient repercussions would only lead to teams searching up the boundaries more.
Because when you say: “we have a budget cap of 145M. But if you go over it up until 7,5 million, that’s a minor penalty. And if you go over it with up to 20 million, that’s a medium penalty. And going above that is disqualification.” the top teams would just exploit this, taking light penalties for granted and still building their lead over smaller teams that have less funding. And that is not a good idea.
Now that I’m discussing this, I realise and have to admit I don’t have a thorough understanding of the regulations surrounding F1’s budget cap, other than what I’ve read on here. But it makes me intrigued to read more into it and will do so!
