2021 Cost Cap Rumours and Speculation

[dans79]

This is F1. Without any doubt $1.8M is a trivial amount.

Brian

Horner himself said $280k could be the difference between winning and losing, so surly $1.8m (almost 6.5 times more) is significant!
viewtopic.php?p=1095054#p1095054

[PlatinumZealot]

Oh the corruption! What is this deal I'm hearing about? Is this like a plea bargain of some sort? It means RedBull has some really really egregious breaches behind it all!

[langedweil]

Have to say, the outright witchhunt on here based on a handful rumours is truly amazing ..

[ispano6]

With the amount of damage caused to Red Bull through no fault of their own, making spares is a must. And to have to rebuild a car from a total loss, sounds like that they were right at the limit of the cost cap by their calculations.

[AeroDynamic]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10387107/

We keep hearing of ' Ah it was not spent on speed, it was on toilet paper' etc.
There are not separate budgets.
Money spent goes on the car because if they had not bought the toilet paper it would have gone on speed.
If all the teams have a bog roll allowance above the spend, that's fine. If not, then it contravenes the rule and is to be penalised accordingly.

I would like to say at this point, having read previously a point that 'cheating' is not the same as inadvertently busting a rule, and I quite agree. But-- it should be penalised above passing the spend limit, not instead of it.

I do believe there was no intention to cheat, but that is not the point. A driver may not intend to cross the white line, but if he does, he is penalised.

Well said. This fact needs to be highlighted more. There is one 'budget', one cost cap. It sounds innocent when the team says, for example, 'we went over because of some sick pay and catering costs.' No, that's not how a budget works. You spent too much money on the car/performance/engineering, and didn't have enough left for the other costs.

looking at it any other way than this, is to simply be in denial of the fact that no matter where you think the 'overspend' went, if you have to squeeze the whole budget back under the cap, it leaves you with less to use towards performance.

From the perspective of the other 9 teams, if they too were allowed another $1.8 Million+ where do you think they would spend it? on sandwiches? no. It will go on development and upgrades. Thats the other angle that Red Bull fans neglect. It doesn't even matter 'where' Red Bull used it. It's where it could have been used for all the other 9 teams. The budget cap is the limit.

1.8 million isn't trivial especially in a championship result that came down to less than 10 points. If you remove a trivial amount of points that reflect the exceeding of the budget cap to any extent; let's say half a point from each race of 2021, Verstappen doesn't finish at the top of the standings as '21 Champion.

[mendis]

It seems there is a conflict between mods when it comes to this thread. One locks it and the other opens it. Someone need to moderate their take on the matter.

My vote is for the mod that closes it as I don't see any value in the same information being regurgitated due to lack of development in the matter and in the process, antaganizing each other. There is nothing that you read for the last 50 odd pages that isn't said in pages prior to that.

[morefirejules08]

With the amount of damage caused to Red Bull through no fault of their own, making spares is a must. And to have to rebuild a car from a total loss, sounds like that they were right at the limit of the cost cap by their calculations.

The problem for Redbull is other teams had higher accident damage costs and still stayed under the cap not only that but accident damage is part and parcel of racing so if RB didn’t set enough budget aside, that is in them.

[Chuckjr]

Have to say, the outright witchhunt on here based on a handful rumours is truly amazing ..

Seriously. I think it’s clear why...

[Stu]

Well said. This fact needs to be highlighted more. There is one 'budget', one cost cap. It sounds innocent when the team says, for example, 'we went over because of some sick pay and catering costs.' No, that's not how a budget works. You spent too much money on the car/performance/engineering, and didn't have enough left for the other costs.

Agreed, A budget is a budget, and anyone who is a responsible person knows sticking to one takes work and planning.

Agreed.

However the FIA always seem to write rules that are open to interpretation, be they technical, sporting and, now financial.

A bit of a ----show, but if the latter is taken as a ‘hard’ limit (which it seemingly wasn’t planned to be - minor and major breaches were written in, even if the penalties for each were not nailed down); surely the penalties for the other rule-sets should be revisited for future seasons?

Hopefully after todays press conference there will be no more speculation, and I can lock the thread for the archives.

[Stu]

With the amount of damage caused to Red Bull through no fault of their own, making spares is a must. And to have to rebuild a car from a total loss, sounds like that they were right at the limit of the cost cap by their calculations.

The problem for Redbull is other teams had higher accident damage costs and still stayed under the cap not only that but accident damage is part and parcel of racing so if RB didn’t set enough budget aside, that is in them.

I think that a STATEMENT like that needs a link…

[littlebigcat]

Oh the corruption! What is this deal I'm hearing about? Is this like a plea bargain of some sort? It means RedBull has some really really egregious breaches behind it all!

It means the FIA are following the process by offering an ABA after a team is found to have breached the cap. There is no corruption here.

[Vanja #66]

The explanation

The team appears to have fallen foul of several areas of the FIA's financial regulations, which have regularly been updated by amendments that have not been published on its website or made public.

One is the allocation of the cost of catering at the factory and at the track. In addition, there are believed to be redundancy and sick pay issues related to key employees.

A subject more directly involved to the cost of running the cars is the allocation of the value of unused spare parts.

is a basic lesson on "How to hide your development costs behind naive explanations"

What the team overspent is almost a half of an in-season development budget. That amount of extra funds was undoubtedly detrimental to their title push. No matter, slap on the wrist ought to teach 'em a lesson.

The biggest question now is - how much will they have overspent this year? 3 mil? 4 mil?

[morefirejules08]

With the amount of damage caused to Red Bull through no fault of their own, making spares is a must. And to have to rebuild a car from a total loss, sounds like that they were right at the limit of the cost cap by their calculations.

The problem for Redbull is other teams had higher accident damage costs and still stayed under the cap not only that but accident damage is part and parcel of racing so if RB didn’t set enough budget aside, that is in them.

I think that a STATEMENT like that needs a link…

I thought this was pretty common knowledge
https://www.planetf1.com/news/driver-cr ... osts-2021/

[DChemTech]

What the team overspent is almost a half of an in-season development budget.

This implies details of the magnitude of overspending have been made public. Is that the case?

[Wouter]

According to De Telegraaf journalist Erik van Haren, however, that press conference will not take place. Horner should first meet with the FIA president to discuss the situation again. The FIA would have made Red Bull an Accepted Breach Agreement, but Red Bull would therefore agree that it was wrong and the team does not want that.