2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Just_a_fan]

Feelings are not facts.

If a driver drivers across a chicane in order to save several seconds, is that cheating? The rules say you shouldn't do it. The stewards may punish you with a penalty. But nowhere in the FIA documents will it say " the driver cheated". It will use phrases such as "gained an advantage".

By your position, such a driver isn't cheating by his actions.

Apples Vs Oranges.

[Just_a_fan]

Either way it’s off topic for the Merc thread.
What I will say is I really hope Merc don’t end up going over the budget cap if they’ve got c.50 finance staff, that would be rather embarrassing.

Finance staff aren't included in the cost cap. So they can have an entire building full of finance staff and it doesn't matter.

[chrisc90]

Lets face it, if a team is declaring 50 finance staff in their business, and the average of the other teams is say 10-15, I imagine the FIA is going to be raising a few eyebrows and questions about what exact role 50 finance staff are doing when other teams manage perfectly well with ~10-15.

Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'

[Tvetovnato]

Lets face it, if a team is declaring 50 finance staff in their business, and the average of the other teams is say 10-15, I imagine the FIA is going to be raising a few eyebrows and questions about what exact role 50 finance staff are doing when other teams manage perfectly well with ~10-15.

Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'

Highly likely that they already know about it though. It would also not be very smart of Toto to even mention it if there was something fishy going on. He could have said that the finance department keeps track of things and not mention how many they are.

For now, the only thing happening here is that a few Red Bull activists want to make Mercedes look as bad as Red Bull to make them feel better about the cost cap breach. So let’s wait until something has actually been proven.

[KeiKo403]

Either way it’s off topic for the Merc thread.
What I will say is I really hope Merc don’t end up going over the budget cap if they’ve got c.50 finance staff, that would be rather embarrassing.

Finance staff aren't included in the cost cap. So they can have an entire building full of finance staff and it doesn't matter.

Yea, I know they’re exempt. I meant it would be embarrassing to go over in spite of having so many finance people, rather than going over because they have that many.

[ValeVida46]

Lets face it, if a team is declaring 50 finance staff in their business, and the average of the other teams is say 10-15

Where do you have figures to back up the claim of other teams having 10-15? Or was it a speculative guess?

I imagine the FIA is going to be raising a few eyebrows and questions about what exact role 50 finance staff are doing when other teams manage perfectly well with ~10-15.

Not at all. The rules clearly stipulate what is permissible. Inside a budget cap, efficiency counts. Having a "nut and bolt" accountable finance department will clearly eradicate inefficiencies, at the expense of a larger financial dept head count

Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'

I'm struggling here, how can you attribute legitimate within-the-rules actions as worse than cheating the budget cap rules?

[les arcs]

Lets face it, if a team is declaring 50 finance staff in their business, and the average of the other teams is say 10-15

Where do you have figures to back up the claim of other teams having 10-15? Or was it a speculative guess?

I imagine the FIA is going to be raising a few eyebrows and questions about what exact role 50 finance staff are doing when other teams manage perfectly well with ~10-15.

Not at all. The rules clearly stipulate what is permissible. Inside a budget cap, efficiency counts. Having a "nut and bolt" accountable finance department will clearly eradicate inefficiencies, at the expense of a larger financial dept head count

Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'

I'm struggling here, how can you attribute legitimate within-the-rules actions as worse than cheating the budget cap rules?


It’s very easy, they inhabit a completely different world….

[Tiny73]

Lets face it, if a team is declaring 50 finance staff in their business, and the average of the other teams is say 10-15

Where do you have figures to back up the claim of other teams having 10-15? Or was it a speculative guess?

I imagine the FIA is going to be raising a few eyebrows and questions about what exact role 50 finance staff are doing when other teams manage perfectly well with ~10-15.

Not at all. The rules clearly stipulate what is permissible. Inside a budget cap, efficiency counts. Having a "nut and bolt" accountable finance department will clearly eradicate inefficiencies, at the expense of a larger financial dept head count

Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'

I'm struggling here, how can you attribute legitimate within-the-rules actions as worse than cheating the budget cap rules?

Red bull apologists will make many, many illogical gymnastic manoeuvres to justify why breaking the cost cap wasn’t cheating and even so it was only by £400k, well, £1.8m but if the tax credit blah blah blah. Breaking the rules is cheating, maybe not intentionally but it’s cheating.

[chrisc90]

Someone on here mentioned ~50 finance staff. That was the reference I was using. Infact the linked article suggested 46 staff. viewtopic.php?p=1141726#p1141726

Nobody said the other teams have exactly 10-15 staff doing that role, it was merely a contrast of something that might raise a eyebrow - as I said. Surely someone would think what’s up when a team has 2-3x more staff doing the same job Vs others.

Not entirely sure why people are suggesting being a RB fan has anything to do with ‘making excuses’ when the topic doesn’t even involve them. Poor show

[f1jcw]

Not entirely sure why people are suggesting being a RB fan has anything to do with ‘making excuses’ when the topic doesn’t even involve them. Poor show

Maybe having something to do with this what you posted

"Knowingly setting up a business/structure like that is worse than mis-calculating a tax rebate or 'catering budget'"

[Just_a_fan]

Nobody said the other teams have exactly 10-15 staff doing that role, it was merely a contrast of something that might raise a eyebrow - as I said. Surely someone would think what’s up when a team has 2-3x more staff doing the same job Vs others.

Merc have implemented a cost monitoring team to hopefully allow them to maximise team performance whilst avoiding ordering too many sandwiches.

I do wonder why other teams aren't doing the same, frankly.

[ValeVida46]

Someone on here mentioned ~50 finance staff. That was the reference I was using. Infact the linked article suggested 46 staff. viewtopic.php?p=1141726#p1141726

Nobody said the other teams have exactly 10-15 staff doing that role, it was merely a contrast of something that might raise a eyebrow - as I said. Surely someone would think what’s up when a team has 2-3x more staff doing the same job Vs others.

Not entirely sure why people are suggesting being a RB fan has anything to do with ‘making excuses’ when the topic doesn’t even involve them. Poor show

Well as it's written, you made a claim using an arbitrary 10-15 number as "contrast" to form a conclusion that 50(46) staff in financial positions is worse than breaking the budget cap.

The only reasoning you provide to assert your claim that a legal action is worse than a rule breaking is:

Surely someone would think what’s up when a team has 2-3x more staff doing the same job Vs others.

However:
A) It doesnt break the rules
B) You have zero idea how many financial staff other teams have.
C) How can you make any deduction and form a conclusion of what is worse when you don't even know B)


So in essence, you don't know how many staff other teams have in similar roles, you speculate "somethings up", but you assert that it is worse than Red Bull breaking the budget rules.
Ok to have that opinion, but at the same time how do you suspect a neutral observer would view the level of bias you are employing in your post?

[ValeVida46]

Merc have implemented a cost monitoring team to hopefully allow them to maximise team performance whilst avoiding ordering too many sandwiches.

I do wonder why other teams aren't doing the same, frankly.

Sandwiches gives you 25/30 wins.

I sense RB marketing missed a trick.

[Rootsap]

Couldn't it just be that the whole financial structure is created to relieve engineers of all tedious paperwork? That way engineers have more time to spend on actual engineering tasks.

[Unc1eM0nty]

Nobody said the other teams have exactly 10-15 staff doing that role, it was merely a contrast of something that might raise a eyebrow - as I said. Surely someone would think what’s up when a team has 2-3x more staff doing the same job Vs others.

Merc have implemented a cost monitoring team to hopefully allow them to maximise team performance whilst avoiding ordering too many sandwiches.

I do wonder why other teams aren't doing the same, frankly.

I'd be amazed if they don't. The cost cap monitoring goes way and above usual business & finance practices. Call them what you want but the finance head count for every team must have gone up to accurately measure spend on every nut, bolt, supplier invoice etc.

The irony is the engineering cost cap has pushed up spend in other areas, but as mentioned this is allowed