2021 Cost Cap Rumours and Speculation

[chrisc90]

This year I bet the cafeteria has been in RBPT. RBR employees then head over to RBPT for lunch.

[Dee]

This year I bet the cafeteria has been in RBPT. RBR employees then head over to RBPT for lunch.

Facts

[dans79]

I'm not sure why people keep saying it's about food for the team or the powertrain branch, as the aba says nothing about that.

the only thing the ABA says that was wrong related to food is as follows.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... 6.32_1.pdf

Overstated excluded costs pursuant to Article 3.1(a) of the Financial Regulations (concerning
catering services);

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... -10-15.pdf
3.1 a

3.1 In calculating Relevant Costs, the following costs and amounts within Total Costs of the
Reporting Group must be excluded ("Excluded Costs"):

(a) All costs Directly Attributable to Marketing Activities;

[SiLo]

Mercedes hid nothing and intentionally went over the cap.

Eh?

[Mosin123]

It's not cheating if you intentionally break a rule and accept the penalty for it.

It's not cheating if you do it publicly and in full knowledge of the whole paddock and the FIA et al and in accordance with the rules laid down. Hiding an engine allocation breach would be cheating - changing an engine and saying "we are within the engine allocation limit". I guess that's the correct analogy here.

Red Bull hid nothing and did not intentionally go over the cap, Mercedes hid nothing and intentionally went over the cap.

You have to analyse Red Bulls position

The FIA said because they fed RBPT staff, that money should be included.

RB's mistake was thinking the FIA would have common sense and allow them to adjust their budget to only include money spent on people that worked in RBR.

Their downfall was thinking they could change things after when they should have changed things from the start.

The Tax credit was owed to them and if they had been allowed to resubmit, would have reduced their overspend to 400,000. Changing the food allocation would have brought them under the cap entirely.

From 2005 to 2020, there has never been any scandal associated to RBR and I am 100% sure they didn't intend to be over the cap last year. It is not in their nature.

I get what you are trying to say, but cant agree, you are comparing apples and oranges, you cant compare changing an engine, some thing pretty much all teams do, to breaking the financial regs of which only one has broken, one is allowed to be broken, as per the rules, you just take a penalty for doing it to many times. the other isnt supposed to be broken at all, its even worded so teams cant look for gray areas with out first informing the FIA of their intentions and get clearence, the fact Redbull failed to adhear to them is completely different to changing an engine.

Redbull have been called up for all sorts of out side the rules infringments, they just always seem to get 3 months to correct it. Last season was the perfect example, 6 races they was given to fix an illegal front wing they was found to be using, When RedBull accused merc of having a flexy rear wing, a new test was out a week later...... Mercs wing passed the test, but the FIA still kept it for 2 weeks? to do extra tests make sure it was legit..

FIA is full of double standards, US GP, two cars in the same quali session go over the white line, one loses his only lap time, delete, gone, the redbull of max was allowed to go through even though he should have had his lap deleted, did exactly the same infringment as the other car.

Been like it for a while, Redbull and Max seem to have a different set of rules to every body else.

[Dee]

I'm not sure why people keep saying it's about food for the team or the powertrain branch, as the aba says nothing about that.

the only thing the ABA says that was wrong related to food is as follows.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... 6.32_1.pdf

Overstated excluded costs pursuant to Article 3.1(a) of the Financial Regulations (concerning
catering services);

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... -10-15.pdf
3.1 a

3.1 In calculating Relevant Costs, the following costs and amounts within Total Costs of the
Reporting Group must be excluded ("Excluded Costs"):

(a) All costs Directly Attributable to Marketing Activities;

This is in the excludable part

3.1
(n) All costs of goods and services within the Power Unit Supply Perimeter for use by the
F1 Team, up to an amount in any Full Year Reporting Period equal to the applicable
maximum price as set out in the Sporting Regulations;

Because RBR fed RBPT staff in their RBR building the FIA said they couldn't exclude that from their expenditure budget, even though it states quite clearly in the rules that goods and services within PUSP can be excluded.

RB thought that it wouldn't be an issue to continue what they had always been doing and exclude RBPT because common sense and they knew the staff figure. The FIA said no, you can't do that..

[Dee]

Mercedes hid nothing and intentionally went over the cap.

Eh?

The Engine Allocation Cap

[dans79]

Because RBR fed RBPT staff in their RBR building the FIA said they couldn't exclude that from their expenditure budget, even though it states quite clearly in the rules that goods and services within PUSP can be excluded.

please point to where the FIA said RB breached a regulation even close to this in the ABA! The aba specifically references 3.1(a)

[Dee]

It's not cheating if you do it publicly and in full knowledge of the whole paddock and the FIA et al and in accordance with the rules laid down. Hiding an engine allocation breach would be cheating - changing an engine and saying "we are within the engine allocation limit". I guess that's the correct analogy here.

Red Bull hid nothing and did not intentionally go over the cap, Mercedes hid nothing and intentionally went over the cap.

You have to analyse Red Bulls position

The FIA said because they fed RBPT staff, that money should be included.

RB's mistake was thinking the FIA would have common sense and allow them to adjust their budget to only include money spent on people that worked in RBR.

Their downfall was thinking they could change things after when they should have changed things from the start.

The Tax credit was owed to them and if they had been allowed to resubmit, would have reduced their overspend to 400,000. Changing the food allocation would have brought them under the cap entirely.

From 2005 to 2020, there has never been any scandal associated to RBR and I am 100% sure they didn't intend to be over the cap last year. It is not in their nature.

I get what you are trying to say, but cant agree, you are comparing apples and oranges, you cant compare changing an engine, some thing pretty much all teams do, to breaking the financial regs of which only one has broken,

one is allowed to be broken, as per the rules, you just take a penalty for doing it to many times. the other isnt supposed to be broken at all

, its even worded so teams cant look for gray areas with out first informing the FIA of their intentions and get clearence, the fact Redbull failed to adhear to them is completely different to changing an engine.

Redbull have been called up for all sorts of out side the rules infringments, they just always seem to get 3 months to correct it. Last season was the perfect example, 6 races they was given to fix an illegal front wing they was found to be using, When RedBull accused merc of having a flexy rear wing, a new test was out a week later...... Mercs wing passed the test, but the FIA still kept it for 2 weeks? to do extra tests make sure it was legit..

FIA is full of double standards, US GP, two cars in the same quali session go over the white line, one loses his only lap time, delete, gone, the redbull of max was allowed to go through even though he should have had his lap deleted, did exactly the same infringment as the other car.

Been like it for a while, Redbull and Max seem to have a different set of rules to every body else.

False

The budget cap has penalties for an overspend, just like engine allocation cap has penalties for taking more than you should. Saying one is allowed to be broken and the other isnt is factually incorrect.

[turbof1]

It's not cheating if you intentionally break a rule and accept the penalty for it.

It's not cheating if you do it publicly and in full knowledge of the whole paddock and the FIA et al and in accordance with the rules laid down. Hiding an engine allocation breach would be cheating - changing an engine and saying "we are within the engine allocation limit". I guess that's the correct analogy here.

Red Bull hid nothing and did not intentionally go over the cap, Mercedes hid nothing and intentionally went over the cap.

You have to analyse Red Bull's position

The FIA said because they fed RBPT staff, that money should be included.

RB's mistake was thinking the FIA would have common sense and allow them to adjust their budget to only include money spent on people that worked in RBR.

Their downfall was thinking they could change things after when they should have changed things from the start.

The Tax credit was owed to them and if they had been allowed to resubmit, would have reduced their overspend to 400,000. Changing the food allocation would have brought them under the cap entirely.

From 2005 to 2020, there has never been any scandal associated to RBR and I am 100% sure they didn't intend to be over the cap last year. It is not in their nature.

1) the comparison on both moral and regulatory grounds just does not make any sense. Both are written in the rules, for both transgressions the possible penalties have been defined. For the PU a fixed position penalty for each component, for the cap overspend the penalty sits between a wide range of penalties. Both are clearly defined what the consequences are or could be.

Moreover, RBR also used more engines than the allocation allows. I am sure that the next argument will be "yes, but merc did it more". So what? They followed the rules by accepting a penalty for each component above the set allocation. Please stop hammering on that argument. It is a hollow one, Merc has nothing do with the FIA ruling, and the regulations about the PU component allocation have nothing to do with this, and thus off topic.

2) Also the argument "they just needed to check a checkbox for taxes, so the 1.4m does not count" is false. They did not check it because this has consequences regarding... taxes! This as somebody before mentioned very complex and part of tax optimisation, but by not doing that they probably eyed a tax reduction. Only this has consequences on the budget. So of course the FIA included this. RBR did not forget to check it, they just thought by not checking it would have no impact on the submission, while it actually did.

3) What about other costs they were not correctly stated? Because these 2 things always come back: the tax checkbox and the catering. RBR's submission was 4m under the cap. Those 2 alone would be enough for a breach.

The following other parts were not adhering to the regulations:

-social security contributions
-costs regarding non-f1 activities that were already offset in different post (meaning rbr tried to offset these costs twice...)
-costs to employer bonuses associated employer social security contributions
-understated costs on disposal of fixed assets
-costs on levies of apprentice levies
-understated costs on the use of power units
-understated costs concerning use of inventory
-certain costs due to travel
-costs of maintenance pursuant

So while everybody is talking about catering and the taxes, the whole above list also is just as relevant.

If the level of this thread does not improve soon, we will consider closing it.

[Dee]

Because RBR fed RBPT staff in their RBR building the FIA said they couldn't exclude that from their expenditure budget, even though it states quite clearly in the rules that goods and services within PUSP can be excluded.

please point to where the FIA said RB breached a regulation even close to this in the ABA!

You literally quoted it yourself in your own post

Overstated excluded costs pursuant to Article 3.1(a) of the Financial Regulations (concerning
catering services);

They excluded RBPT catering because they are the PU goods and services but because they were being fed in the RBR building, the FIA said it had to be included.

[TimW]

Yes, using more than twice the number of engines allowed by the rules to get a performance gain is fine if you accept the penalty is fine, no discussion.

Just fueling...

[turbof1]

further referencing to usage of PU allocation will be removed.

[dans79]

Because RBR fed RBPT staff in their RBR building the FIA said they couldn't exclude that from their expenditure budget, even though it states quite clearly in the rules that goods and services within PUSP can be excluded.

please point to where the FIA said RB breached a regulation even close to this in the ABA!

You literally quoted it yourself in your own post

Overstated excluded costs pursuant to Article 3.1(a) of the Financial Regulations (concerning
catering services);

They excluded RBPT catering because they are the PU goods and services but because they were being fed in the RBR building, the FIA said it had to be included.

I did quote specifically what they said was a breach, 3.1 (a) ,

3.1 a

All costs Directly Attributable to Marketing Activities;

Are you trying to say the red bulls accountants listed feeding the powertrain team as marketing?

[SiLo]

further referencing to usage of PU allocation will be removed.

Thanks I was confused