2021 Cost Cap Rumours and Speculation

[djones]

Sorry if this was already asked.

But does the 7m come out of their budget?

If not then that was literally meaningless for such a rich company and they have only actually received the 10% reduction.

[mendis]

Sorry if this was already asked.

But does the 7m come out of their budget?

If not then that was literally meaningless for such a rich company and they have only actually received the 10% reduction.

According to rules, No. It doesn't come from the budget.

[popovic94]

For people claiming that this is not cheating, lets look at this thing this way. For example lets take that smaller value of 0.37% overspend over cap, and lets imagine some X team adjusts fuel flow limiter for 0.37%, so they would have few extra hp and few extra KpH, for every lap, of every gp, of whole season, wouldn't you say that would mean they are cheating? What is the difference betwen cap in money, or cap in fuel flow, or air pressures in tires, that is competitive advantage won in ilegal way and only punishment is DQ from championship.

[DChemTech]

For people claiming that this is not cheating, lets look at this thing this way. For example lets take that smaller value of 0.37% overspend over cap, and lets imagine some X team adjusts fuel flow limiter for 0.37%, so they would have few extra hp and few extra KpH, for every lap, of every gp, of whole season, wouldn't you say that would mean they are cheating? What is the difference betwen cap in money, or cap in fuel flow, or air pressures in tires, that is competitive advantage won in ilegal way and only punishment is DQ from championship.

The difference is that the example you provide is malicious intent.

[GrizzleBoy]

For people claiming that this is not cheating, lets look at this thing this way. For example lets take that smaller value of 0.37% overspend over cap, and lets imagine some X team adjusts fuel flow limiter for 0.37%, so they would have few extra hp and few extra KpH, for every lap, of every gp, of whole season, wouldn't you say that would mean they are cheating? What is the difference betwen cap in money, or cap in fuel flow, or air pressures in tires, that is competitive advantage won in ilegal way and only punishment is DQ from championship.

The difference is that the example you provide is malicious intent.

Ferrari tried to fool the fuel flow meter.

Red Bull tried to fool the FIAs auditors and are currently still trying to fool the public.

I think the problem with the intent thing, is that RB have done things like not include staff costs while they were sick, knowing it was still a cost.

Publicly and with a straight face trying to twaddle about specifically which dollar they spent on what day, in what department constitutes to the overspend.

Tried to include a credit not yet received as part of a show of what has or has not happened yet.

Intention is easy to prove so they FIA aren't going to make accusations without ironclad evidence (especially when they have no interest in rocking the boat as it negatively affects them too).

But that does not prevent the rest of us having our own views.on how "clean" Red Bull and their management looks coming out of it.

Horner is in full PR bollocks mode making it look even worse to people who know what he is saying is full of spin, half truth, deflection and intelligence insulting gibberish.

[littlebigcat]

The only things I read here are that RBR are cheaters, Horner is a liar and the FIA are liars.

This is hyperbole and does yourself and others in this thread a disservice.

I've contributed to this thread a lot, and I've said neither that Horner or the FIA are liars. I've specifically said that in my opinion breaching the cost cap isn't cheating, its simply breaching the regulations. Cheating would require a degree of evasion and deceit, and like you say the FIA found none.

Other things discussed in this thread like evading the limits on CFD processing and tunnel time would be cheating, as it would involve actively not recording the cost nor the time.

[McL-H]

For people claiming that this is not cheating, lets look at this thing this way. For example lets take that smaller value of 0.37% overspend over cap, and lets imagine some X team adjusts fuel flow limiter for 0.37%, so they would have few extra hp and few extra KpH, for every lap, of every gp, of whole season, wouldn't you say that would mean they are cheating? What is the difference betwen cap in money, or cap in fuel flow, or air pressures in tires, that is competitive advantage won in ilegal way and only punishment is DQ from championship.

The difference is that the example you provide is malicious intent.

Intent should be no part of the equation and it never has been in the past wherein teams were disqualified for “running a car in an illegal manner”.

They had the option last year to have a practice audit on their finances to see whether they were moving in the right direction. They did not participate in that. There was possibility for communication with the FIA to discuss interpretations of the rules, which they did not make use of. Then, they could have chosen to hold onto some margin in order to stay well within the refinements of the cap if they’d made an error, but they chose to walk on a thin line with that.

Their infringement to the budget cap has been reckless to say the least. When a defender in football comes in reckless and breaks someones leg, he gets a red card. No matter the intent.

Do I think they should have been disqualified? I believe Red Bull has damaged the integrity of the sport by their actions, but it would damage the sport even more if a year later championships were to be transferred to other teams and drivers. I don’t want that.

But this penalty has been way too lenient. I agree with Zak that any team infringing the cost cap should have their cap reduced by double the amount in the following season. Reduced wind tunnel time of 10% is fine, but it should be in percentage points. Not 10% of 70%. And it should affect CFD too.

[Xwang]

I think that the limitation in aero is on the comulative CFD+wind tunnel ... If they have not changed the rules in the last two or three years, I knew that the rules give an amount of wind tunnel hours and an equivalency between CFD and wind tunnel and then teams can decide how to split between CFD and Wind tunnel so that the sum of the two is under the total ... Is it still so? If not the penalty only on wi s tunnel hours is a complete joke!!! Imho

[Edax]

I’ll definitely won’t contribute to this thread again as it brings out the worst of partisan crowds.

.
I agree. I won't do that anymore too. The only things I read here are that RBR are cheaters, Horner is a liar and the FIA are liars.

It was clear from the day 1 that this thread would end up a place for venting out frustration and anger towards a team that's not your favourite and there is a good reason for that. You have a choice to ignore and stay away, like so many other users here who haven't bothered setting foot here. I questioned this thread periodically as to why it was open, when there wasn't any development. It's opened now that the matter has been concluded.

Once again the question is, what's it open for? Verdict is out, guilty is punished and everyone who wanted to express an opinion has done so. Like I mentioned, the only reason why this would be open is for people to continue repeatedly venting out. The longer it's open, the more meaningless it would become.

Yeah, for me it would be time to close this. Finance is difficult, when it involves a complex supply chain and multiple tax regimes. I can fully see how this overrun was unintentional, but it is an overrun nevertheless.
So there will always be people that think the punishment is to light or too heavy, so be it.

There is one thing that nags me though. And that is the role of Wolff. I do feel that the initial accusations of Wolff based on partial and inaccurate information blew this thing out of proportion and set the stage for the toxic discussions that followed.

And to be honest that is not the first time, not even this season. Actually I like the guy and I understand that he is emotionally invested in the sport but he is also a spokesman for the team, his words have consequences. And unfortunately he is not balanced by Lauda anymore.

Starting fires among a highly volatile fanbase is not helping the sport. It only leads to frustration and conflict.

I do think that too has to have a repercussion. Not something big or consequential, but a symbolic slap on the wrist, to hopefully have him watch his words better in the future.

[Big Tea]

Sorry if this was already asked.

But does the 7m come out of their budget?

If not then that was literally meaningless for such a rich company and they have only actually received the 10% reduction.

Does the overspend also get deducted from this years budget?

[chrisc90]

Any team fines are outside of the cap.

[Big Tea]

"We had a difference of opinion on sick pay; we have always taken a view that we wanted to support our staff in sickness and in health, and, when members of staff have been on long-term [leave] we supported them, as we will continue to do in the future. We felt that sick [pay], the role paid no function in the Grand Prix team in the period of eight months, [so it] was an excludable cost. Unfortunately, the regulations can be interpreted in two ways: had the person died, which thankfully they didn’t, the cost would have been excludable. Thankfully they didn’t die; therefore the cost was includable for that period.”

Crazy statement, I’m still on the side that Christian Horner, Newey and Verstappen are cheaters, so the role played no role on the Grand Prix team, hmmm really, so Red Bull gets to decide what is an excludable role or what isn’t. This gets more and more interesting.

I can not follow this. If the 'employee' is on salary, as I would assume any who are not contractors are, the 'payment' or expense for the year is the same, if they are contractors, RBR are not liable for sick pay it comes out of their own insurance. Same for any 'death in service' payments would come from the pension fund.

[e30ernest]

I honestly think RB got off lightly with this one. I wonder now if the FIA will make clarifications down the road to make these small breaches incur heavier penalties because with how little they got punished, other teams might be tempted to do the same.

[jjn9128]

Yeah, for me it would be time to close this. Finance is difficult, when it involves a complex supply chain and multiple tax regimes. I can fully see how this overrun was unintentional, but it is an overrun nevertheless.
So there will always be people that think the punishment is to light or too heavy, so be it.

There is one thing that nags me though. And that is the role of Wolff. I do feel that the initial accusations of Wolff based on partial and inaccurate information blew this thing out of proportion and set the stage for the toxic discussions that followed.

And to be honest that is not the first time, not even this season. Actually I like the guy and I understand that he is emotionally invested in the sport but he is also a spokesman for the team, his words have consequences. And unfortunately he is not balanced by Lauda anymore.

Starting fires among a highly volatile fanbase is not helping the sport. It only leads to frustration and conflict.

I do think that too has to have a repercussion. Not something big or consequential, but a symbolic slap on the wrist, to hopefully have him watch his words better in the future.

Then there's the question of how Wolff knew about it ahead of time. There's something seriously dodgy in the FIA, whether you agree with this latest penalty or not. The race directors seem to be at odds with the stewards, and the general management of the sport seems to be just off - not sure how else to describe it. Big teams seem to get more leeway on infringements than smaller teams, e.g. Haas get the meatball flag multiple times but Hamilton has half a front wing hanging off or Perez/Russell have an endplate flapping about for most of a race and that's okay.

Red Bull seem to be the latest example as the team in the FIAs good graces, but Merc and Ferrari have benefitted from perceived favouritism in the past.

The penalty is fair, 10% loss of aero dev on top of already having less time is a big punishment, but wont have an immediate effect. I expect like a Brawn '09 scenario where they start strong based on the development done this year but then drop backwards through the year.

[Stu]

This is something that we won’t know until the penalty has been served. From a personal point of view, the fine should served as a budget cap reduction (I know that it isn’t).