Cost Cap + Unlimited Innovations

[AR3-GP]

This is the approach to regulation I’ve long advocated for - ie that many of the freedoms (testing) or innovations (name any) that have been removed are done so under the auspices of cost control; as soon as you can control costs in another way (ie a cost cap) then the argument that led to removal (ie “arms race”) disappears.

The one addition I think would be necessary though is some kind of “acceptance testing”. For example, you’re unrestricted on the type of engine you want to build but (a) you must do so within budget (b) you must meet certain criteria - let’s say fuel usage, emissions etc. You can solve that problem however you like and the FIA’s job is to design the tests your solution must pass (eg some kind of bench test to show you’re not exceeding 100kgs of fuel etc).

This approach could also, for example, include acceptance testing for the ‘wake’ produced by the car - again, control by outcome (in this case ‘ability to follow’) not solution. You could in theory also do some kind of BoP (ala WEC) but my POV is that this is actually *less* needed where innovation is more free vs prescriptive regulation. Right now, if you’re behind on performance then there are very few ways to recover (mainly around the underfloor) and the solutions for these tend to converge; if innovation is freer, you can theoretically ‘catch up’ in any number of ways - indeed, you become incentivised to add the cheapest (lowest monetary spend) performance you can find. Maybe that means sticking a solar panel on the car that charges x kw per lap? Maybe it’s w fan car (which, again, would also need to pass safety acceptance testing)? Maybe it’s movable aero? And what you choose to focus on then leans into where one manufacturer may have more expertise than another, leading to the solution that is right for one being wrong for another.

My view is that, when controlled by cost, this might lead to more swings in performance (by track, throughout a season etc) than we currently see.

Budget cap and "unlimited" technical freedom are very dangerous for the sport. The risk of a one-make championship like 2013-2016 where a team starts so far off or far ahead, that others can't catchup due to the finite budget.

The benefit of these regulations is that it's harder to go wrong and wind up several seconds off the pace. The performance differentiation of the cars can be narrowed down to 1 or 2 key aero parts, rather than 10 of them. It makes the task of catching up much easier.

It's also a bit of fantasy that teams can pull a rabbit out of hat over the winter on a different concept and win races. There are no shortcuts in F1 like you imagine.

You only have to look back at experiments like the front engine front wheel drive Nissan LMP car, or the delta wing to see what happens when you remove the technical freedom. The car is so bad, and now the budget cap makes it difficult to invest in another concept without remaining months behind the competition in perpetuity.

under more restrictive regulations, if the car is slow, you know you only need to improve the underfloor. You don't have to worry about engines or bargeboards.

[f1316]

This is the approach to regulation I’ve long advocated for - ie that many of the freedoms (testing) or innovations (name any) that have been removed are done so under the auspices of cost control; as soon as you can control costs in another way (ie a cost cap) then the argument that led to removal (ie “arms race”) disappears.

The one addition I think would be necessary though is some kind of “acceptance testing”. For example, you’re unrestricted on the type of engine you want to build but (a) you must do so within budget (b) you must meet certain criteria - let’s say fuel usage, emissions etc. You can solve that problem however you like and the FIA’s job is to design the tests your solution must pass (eg some kind of bench test to show you’re not exceeding 100kgs of fuel etc).

This approach could also, for example, include acceptance testing for the ‘wake’ produced by the car - again, control by outcome (in this case ‘ability to follow’) not solution. You could in theory also do some kind of BoP (ala WEC) but my POV is that this is actually *less* needed where innovation is more free vs prescriptive regulation. Right now, if you’re behind on performance then there are very few ways to recover (mainly around the underfloor) and the solutions for these tend to converge; if innovation is freer, you can theoretically ‘catch up’ in any number of ways - indeed, you become incentivised to add the cheapest (lowest monetary spend) performance you can find. Maybe that means sticking a solar panel on the car that charges x kw per lap? Maybe it’s w fan car (which, again, would also need to pass safety acceptance testing)? Maybe it’s movable aero? And what you choose to focus on then leans into where one manufacturer may have more expertise than another, leading to the solution that is right for one being wrong for another.

My view is that, when controlled by cost, this might lead to more swings in performance (by track, throughout a season etc) than we currently see.

I think you are inventing a bit of a fantasy that is not all that practical.

We already saw with the Mercedes this season. Under a budget cap you can't just show up with a completely different concept. you may try a surface level rendition (Williams, Aston), but it will not have the neccesary development behind it. You can't afford it. It takes an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes legwork just to do the currrent car. People aren't just going to show up with entirely different concepts to the previous season because it's not financially practical to do so. The budget cap and tight regulations ensured that people are stuck within a narrow performance window whereby only one or two key aerodynamic parts are needed to decide championships. In that case, it's the underfloor. All the weaker teams need to do is develop a better underfloor. They don't have to worry about bargeboards, wings, engines, or much of anything else.

In your open season visison, you have the possibility to starting way off the mark. It would be a massive setback that is unrecoverable if you gamble on an idea for an unusual engine or aero concept that doesn't work at all. People like to imagine that these teams can just pull rabbits out of a hat over the winter but the budget cap is what made this impossible, not what enables it as you suggest.

When you can't spend your way out of your development hole, it makes this "unlimited" technical freedom dangerous for the sport. The risk of a one-make championship like 2013-2016 where a team starts so far off or far ahead, that others can't catchup with a finite budget. F1 teams don't pull rabbits out of hats. Fantasy. It takes a sizeable investment of human and financial capital to continue developing what they already have into a winner. There are no shortcuts in F1 like you opine.

What this cap and the restrictive technical regs enabled is that no team winds up straying too far from target and then being limited by budget in their ability to catch up. It has reduced the performance differentiator to a much smaller window whereby a team need only only develop the floor further, to catch up. In previous seasons a team needed a bargeboard program, a front wing program, a rear wing program, a mirror program, a diffuser program and all of these areas are ways where they could get lost and waste resource on dead ends. This year it's much simpler. The slow teams know they only need to develop a better underfloor to catchup up. This is a massive burden removed when you know you only have 1 target to tackle.

I think you’re (possibly intentionally?) applying a facile reading to what is meant to be a high level illustration of a point. At no point did I mention anything about pulling rabbits out of hats; nor did I actually imply anything fantastical that negates any kind of long-term investment or development of the models that lead you to your eventual conclusion.

What I actually said was that team would have more options about how to spend their *limited* money. This potentially enables different avenues of investment and allows larger gains to be made season over season than is currently possible, and means a manufacturer can also decide to prioritise the prototyping of technologies that are most relevant to their wider business. Granted, the latter might mean that other concerns (eg road relevancy) might compete with track competitiveness but equally means there is a theoretically wider scope of return on the investment.

The example of Mercedes did this year is a false equivalency since it occurred during a period of very restrictive regulations. More relevant might be to look at prior eras of F1 where greater technical freedoms existed and note how large step changes in performance were often made through entirely novel solutions.

You could also narrow the scope of this further through the nature of your acceptance testing - eg making certain solutions that you might want to avoid teams rabbit holing on practically impossible since they’d never pass the test - but that strikes me, at least, as a more interesting proposition than a series of boxes etc in which bodywork can’t exist or a set of engine regs that result in a barely perceptible difference to the audience.

[AR3-GP]

I think you’re (possibly intentionally?) applying a facile reading to what is meant to be a high level illustration of a point. At no point did I mention anything about pulling rabbits out of hats; nor did I actually imply anything fantastical that negates any kind of long-term investment or development of the models that lead you to your eventual conclusion.

What I actually said was that team would have more options about how to spend their *limited* money. This potentially enables different avenues of investment and allows larger gains to be made season over season than is currently possible, and means a manufacturer can also decide to prioritise the prototyping of technologies that are most relevant to their wider business. Granted, the latter might mean that other concerns (eg road relevancy) might compete with track competitiveness but equally means there is a theoretically wider scope of return on the investment.

"this potentially enables different avenues of investment and allows larger gains to be made season over season"

This is essentially the part that I find a bit "fantastical". In this day and age, a team can't hop through different concepts with a finite budget over a winter and expect any one of them to be an improvement without putting in the development time and money. It takes too much resource and you are forgetting that each new concept starts near the bottom of the performance well and they have to dig up again, with people and money. There is a budget cap. An entirely new concept, whether it's an engine, or an aero philosophy never starts off faster than the one it replaces because although the current car may have limited potential, it's a very optimized car. This is the compromise/gamble that F1 engineers know all too well. To go 1 step forwards, you have to go two steps backwards. And that's where you get caught out by the budget cap.

In your post, you presume that the technical director just draws up a new concept and it's immediately faster than the one it's replacing thereby they aren't penalized by switching concepts. The reality is more unpleasant. You almost always have to go backwards first and then you are immediately penalized some fixed cost of running the windtunnel or engine dynos to get back to where you were, before you can have something that is faster than what you replaced. In the budget cap era, this is very problematic.

With the limited technical freedom, the problem is much easier. You only have 1 or 2 components that differentiate the car. It means if you are on the outside looking in, the problem is smaller. No bargeboards. Little front wing to worry about and so on.

[ojir19]

with limited budget, teams are basically have few technical freedom