2021 Cost Cap Rumours and Speculation

[Cassius]

As the catering talk has come up again, it feels like a good time to post this:



A crappy meme it may be, but it gets the point across. You can't say that as the accounting error was related to catering that only catering was affected by the overspend. However much they spent on nibbles would have had to come from other areas of the budget. The cap isn't split into categories.

Love this picture.

We had probably embarrassing amount of pages of people her (and all over the Internet to be honest), genuinely trying to argue that it's possible to allocate "where" an overspend happened, like that was a thing.

As always it is more nuanced. Of course catering budget is part of the overall budget and if you have to include more than expected, you have to cut somewhere else. However, if they knew beforehand RB's interpretation would not have been acceptedm they would have done differently. Maybe lowered salaries, or in the rumour where they excluded the salary of Dan Fallows after they put him on non-active, they could have terminated his contract and gave him a non-active contract in another department.
Or the spare parts, they would just not have produced them.

What Horner is saying, the mitigations if they knew earlier about FIA not accepting certain interpretations, would not have affected the development budget for 2021.

You could argue - like some teams do - they should have checked certain interpretations with the FIA, difficult to say whether there is any truth in that. They had a 2020 trial run, so maybe things were accepted then, which were not in 2021. Or if you don't know a rule can be interpreted multiple ways, there is no way you know you have to check your own interpretation with the FIA.

[Mosin123]

As the catering talk has come up again, it feels like a good time to post this:



A crappy meme it may be, but it gets the point across. You can't say that as the accounting error was related to catering that only catering was affected by the overspend. However much they spent on nibbles would have had to come from other areas of the budget. The cap isn't split into categories.

Love this picture.

We had probably embarrassing amount of pages of people her (and all over the Internet to be honest), genuinely trying to argue that it's possible to allocate "where" an overspend happened, like that was a thing.

As always it is more nuanced. Of course catering budget is part of the overall budget and if you have to include more than expected, you have to cut somewhere else. However, if they knew beforehand RB's interpretation would not have been acceptedm they would have done differently. Maybe lowered salaries, or in the rumour where they excluded the salary of Dan Fallows after they put him on non-active, they could have terminated his contract and gave him a non-active contract in another department.
Or the spare parts, they would just not have produced them.

What Horner is saying, the mitigations if they knew earlier about FIA not accepting certain interpretations, would not have affected the development budget for 2021.

You could argue - like some teams do - they should have checked certain interpretations with the FIA, difficult to say whether there is any truth in that. They had a 2020 trial run, so maybe things were accepted then, which were not in 2021. Or if you don't know a rule can be interpreted multiple ways, there is no way you know you have to check your own interpretation with the FIA.

Is it not written in the regs to check it all with the FIA? If they failed to do that, its either on purpose or stupidity, i dont think its stupidity.

[littlebigcat]

It is written in the rules. So either Red Bull were willingly ignorant, or just ignorant.

The rules don’t allow for either.

[chrisc90]

I’m looking forward to reading the report and whether the rumours and talks from CHorner have been true about the rule change post submission.

There will be a lot of talk around it that’s for sure and can almost guarantee we will all draw a different conclusion

[LM10]

I’m looking forward to reading the report and whether the rumours and talks from CHorner have been true about the rule change post submission.

There will be a lot of talk around it that’s for sure and can almost guarantee we will all draw a different conclusion

And I'm looking forward to seeing you finally accept that RedBull have exceeded the cost cap and that them accepting the breach agreement is yet another proof.

[littlebigcat]

I’m looking forward to reading the report and whether the rumours and talks from CHorner have been true about the rule change post submission.

There will be a lot of talk around it that’s for sure and can almost guarantee we will all draw a different conclusion

The rule change only applies to 2022 and later, it’ll be interesting finding out who hasn’t read the regulations

[Tiny73]

I’m looking forward to reading the report and whether the rumours and talks from CHorner have been true about the rule change post submission.

There will be a lot of talk around it that’s for sure and can almost guarantee we will all draw a different conclusion

And I'm looking forward to seeing you finally accept that RedBull have exceeded the cost cap and that them accepting the breach agreement is yet another proof.

Don’t hold your breath…

[morefirejules08]

What is the direct benefit in term of hoarding old sparepart as significant amount derived from there,according to Horner.

Hoarding spare parts is fine as they can be used on show cars and RB does a good amount of shows and events. The problem comes when you say you’ve hoarded those parts for the legacy cars but in fact you have used them to build a new car. I’m not saying this is what RB have done just what the rumours mean

Didn't FIA altered the sparepart hoarding part afterwards?

No the FIA just clarified the rule

[bonjon1979]

Hoarding spare parts is fine as they can be used on show cars and RB does a good amount of shows and events. The problem comes when you say you’ve hoarded those parts for the legacy cars but in fact you have used them to build a new car. I’m not saying this is what RB have done just what the rumours mean

Didn't FIA altered the sparepart hoarding part afterwards?

No the FIA just clarified the rule

Also, they all discussed the rules and the spirit of what was meant by them. If Red Bull have then tried to claim some sort of linguistic grey area in the actual writing of the rules, and hoped to wiggle through then it's all on them. It's interseting reading reports of teams checking their accounting as an ongoing process, if there was any doubt about this Red Bull could've spoken to the FIA prior to handing in the accounts. It stinks a little that again the FIA is negotiating punishment with Red bull instead of just handing it out. It does make it seem very opaque.

[Wouter]

16:00 h CET FIA PC about the butgetcap. Source: Motorsport Italia.
.

La FIA comunicherà oggi l’esito dell’accordo transattivo siglato con la Red Bull in merito alla vicenda budget cap 2021. È atteso un comunicato della Federazione Internazionale alle ore 09:00 di Città del Messico, nel quale saranno resi noti i dettagli di una vicenda che tiene banco da oltre un mese.

Alle 11:30 sarà la volta della Red Bull

[west52keep64]

I’m looking forward to reading the report and whether the rumours and talks from CHorner have been true about the rule change post submission.

There will be a lot of talk around it that’s for sure and can almost guarantee we will all draw a different conclusion

You don't need to wait for a report, you can read the regulations and see the change for yourself.

The change was the removal of "Transitional Carry Over Inventories" from the regulations, but even though "Transitional Carry Over Inventories" was removed from the regulations in June, even if it had been left in Red Bull still couldn't have defined their spare parts as such without the FIA agreement.





Unless Red Bull have an official written determination that their spare parts were allowed to be carried forward as spares for their show cars i.e. not counted in the budget, they don't have a leg to stand on. They appear to have made an assumption in their submission, and that was their error. They must now face the consequences.

[lio007]

I wonder if it turns out to be reduced to a procedural breach, because they may be below the cap when moving figure(s) X from section Y to Z.
Maybe a "win-win" for both. FIA can still sanction the team (for a - not intentionally - wrong declared submission) and RB's claim to be below the cap is also valid.
...as mentioned, just wondering.

[Mosin123]

I wonder if it turns out to be reduced to a procedural breach, because they may be below the cap when moving figure(s) X from section Y to Z.
Maybe a "win-win" for both. FIA can still sanction the team (for a - not intentionally - wrong declared submission) and RB's claim to be below the cap is also valid.
...as mentioned, just wondering.

i feel any light penalty will go down badly for F1 and the future of the financial regs. Merc and Ferrari wont stick to it if any punishment is financial and not sporting. wind tunnel reductions and so on, is just a buy now pay later loan type deal and is a bad precedent to set. imho ofc.

[SiLo]

I wonder if it turns out to be reduced to a procedural breach, because they may be below the cap when moving figure(s) X from section Y to Z.
Maybe a "win-win" for both. FIA can still sanction the team (for a - not intentionally - wrong declared submission) and RB's claim to be below the cap is also valid.
...as mentioned, just wondering.

It's already been confirmed to be both procedural and financial (minor). That won't change.

[SiLo]

If they get a hefty fine + 25% reduction in wind tunnel time, I think most people on the grid would be happy with that punishment. It hits them in both places that hurt, the pocket, and vehicle development.

CFD runs might hurt even more, but wind tunnel time has always been paramount at least to try and confirm your CFD analysis.