Ramifications and speculation around TD045 and how it affects team operations

[Willy]

I've said this elsewhere and I'll say it again: It shouldn't matter that a team is doing R&D research outside of F1, as long as they aren't allowed to bring any concrete designs, plans or other data into the F1 production environment, without it fitting under the cost cap.

If we are gonna start policing knowledge, then we might as well ban Adrian Newey from F1. Anything that exists in peoples heads should be A-okay. If you want some of your engineers to go work on a Hypercar project outside of the cost cap in order for them to get smarter, and then use that knowledge later to help in the design of an F1 car, then that is just as okay as Newey using his 40+ years of experience and knowledge (including with ground effect cars in the 80s).

If people are working on side projects, they might get smarter - but they aren't spending that time working on the actual F1 car, which at the end of the day is what matters. Also, poaching is a thing. Someone working at Mercedes today might work at McLaren tomorrow, and vice versa.

Sendt fra min SM-T976B med Tapatalk

+1. How hard is this for people to understand. Some people think they are smarter than FIA.

[TFSA]

RB17 is a ground effect track special that is being developed now. That's exactly the sort of project that could be used to circumvent resource controls.

So, yes, an elephant.

How can it be used that way exactly?

First of all, you're not allowed to bring any data, design etc. into the F1 factory. And besides that, when it comes to aero, cars are a whole package. All elements interact, so any difference will more or less make testing being done on the RB17 inapplicable to the actual F1 car.

Yes, the Engineers might get smarter, but as i said earlier, knowledge in peoples head can't and shouldn't be policed. If people want to get smarter outside the F1 factory, then they should be allowed to. That's time not being spent working on the F1 car.

The only loophole here is that teams shouldn't be allowed to pay personnel working part-time on other projects more for working on these projects, because that's a way to circumvent the cost cap. If an engineer is working 50% of his time on the F1 car for £100 an hour, and 50% of the time working at, say, Red Bull Advanced Technologies for £300 an hour, then he's essentially paid £200 an hour, yet only £100 an hour is going on the cost cap. That should obviously not be allowed. You work 50% of the time on the F1 car, 50% of your pay goes on the cost cap.

[denyall]

RB17 is a ground effect track special that is being developed now. That's exactly the sort of project that could be used to circumvent resource controls.

So, yes, an elephant.

How can it be used that way exactly?

First of all, you're not allowed to bring any data, design etc. into the F1 factory. And besides that, when it comes to aero, cars are a whole package. All elements interact, so any difference will more or less make testing being done on the RB17 inapplicable to the actual F1 car.

Yes, the Engineers might get smarter, but as i said earlier, knowledge in peoples head can't and shouldn't be policed. If people want to get smarter outside the F1 factory, then they should be allowed to. That's time not being spent working on the F1 car.

The only loophole here is that teams shouldn't be allowed to pay personnel working part-time on other projects more for working on these projects, because that's a way to circumvent the cost cap. If an engineer is working 50% of his time on the F1 car for £100 an hour, and 50% of the time working at, say, Red Bull Advanced Technologies for £300 an hour, then he's essentially paid £200 an hour, yet only £100 an hour is going on the cost cap. That should obviously not be allowed. You work 50% of the time on the F1 car, 50% of your pay goes on the cost cap.

Sendt fra min SM-T976B med Tapatalk

I see the point you are trying to make, and to a certain extent I agree, however, there is is a difference when poaching staff from another team vs moving an engineer to a side project. The individual knowledge gained at other teams is captured under the cost cap for that team, meaning, someone had to pay cap dollars for the knowledge and experience. Since the cap is a limiting resource for all the teams, there is a shortage of experienced engineers across F1. Using a side project to train engineers circumvents the cost cap against all teams if that makes sense.

Further, the really valuable knowledge isn't the sort you learn from a book that you read on the weekend. The valuable knowledge is that which was learned through an iterative design process with prototypes and testing. A team could use a side project car to narrow down the shapes, sizes, and pathways for tunnels under the car that generate the best DF and then design their F1 car to utilize that "free" R&D knowledge.

The prototyping and testing on a side project to build an engineers (and teams) knowledge is the aspect of the side project I have the most issues with.

[Just_a_fan]

RB17 is a ground effect track special that is being developed now. That's exactly the sort of project that could be used to circumvent resource controls.

So, yes, an elephant.

How can it be used that way exactly?

First of all, you're not allowed to bring any data, design etc. into the F1 factory. And besides that, when it comes to aero, cars are a whole package. All elements interact, so any difference will more or less make testing being done on the RB17 inapplicable to the actual F1 car.

Yes, the Engineers might get smarter, but as i said earlier, knowledge in peoples head can't and shouldn't be policed. If people want to get smarter outside the F1 factory, then they should be allowed to. That's time not being spent working on the F1 car.

The RB17 is outside of F1 (indeed, outside of any rule set as it's a track-day special) - they can take any route they wish to design it. So they could start as an open wheel car and develop from there, for example. The point is that it's a project that could be used to circumvent the resource restrictions by simple doing stuff that is relevant for the F1 car and then have people go "oh, interesting" before going back to their F1 job.

Lots of ways for an F1 team to make use of that sort of resource.

People don't really think the RB17 is being done as a commercial proposition, do they?

[Sieper]

Mercedes AMG RB17? Get out.

[AR3-GP]

These are all great thoughts but in the interest of bringing it back to the Mercedes team topic perhaps we can use a Mercedes matter as the discussion point. In this case it would make sense to have a discussion about their America's Cup involvement:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/inside-m ... the-water/

The obvious area of collaboration, and one that has been talked about extensively over the past year or so, is in the crucial foils and associated wing details, which bring aerodynamic and hydrodynamic challenges.

But there’s also been a contribution on the hull structure, which Willis has described as “very similar in concept to how we build our chassis”.

As Allison explains, when you dig into the details of a highly technical project like an America’s Cup boat, the crossover with the specialism of F1 team personnel is enormous.

“The challenge of the boat will eventually touch on the skill set of most of the people on the engineering and manufacturing side in this team,” says Allison.

“If you were to go and dig through the boat you’d see there’s things in it that would interest a cooling engineer, a hydraulics engineer, a structural engineer, a composites engineer, a mechanical mechanisms guy, an aerodynamicist, you just name it.

“The full gamut of electronics, data acquisition sensors, for pretty much everything that makes up the backbone of an F1 team you could find some parts of an America’s Cup boat that they could work on and be excited by.

“So the type of people that we hope to bring to the party on this project will cover all the technical areas in our team, but not necessarily all at the same time.

“So at the moment, the type of people from the F1 world that are involved are some aerodynamicist type guys, some performance simulation type guys, software type guys, planners.”

“This is not in the pursuit of margin, but it is more in the pursuit of learning, of diversification for the benefit of Formula 1.

“And it’s a great new project for engineers that have earned their laurels in Formula 1, but want to look at something different. Having said that, it needs to stand on its own commercial legs.”

Anyone who can read knows the teams are exploiting all of the grey areas of the regulations. Before '23, these extracurricular projects did not have to be accounted for in how they benefit F1. Now they do.

Fair play to everyone involved for maximizing the regulatory blind spots if and when they are available. You can only play to the rules as they are written, at the time that they are written. I imagine Mercedes will have to operate under slightly different assumptions due to TD45.

[Farnborough]

These are all great thoughts but in the interest of bringing it back to the Mercedes team topic perhaps we can use a Mercedes matter as the discussion point. In this case it would make sense to have a discussion about their America's Cup involvement:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/inside-m ... the-water/

The obvious area of collaboration, and one that has been talked about extensively over the past year or so, is in the crucial foils and associated wing details, which bring aerodynamic and hydrodynamic challenges.

But there’s also been a contribution on the hull structure, which Willis has described as “very similar in concept to how we build our chassis”.

As Allison explains, when you dig into the details of a highly technical project like an America’s Cup boat, the crossover with the specialism of F1 team personnel is enormous.

“The challenge of the boat will eventually touch on the skill set of most of the people on the engineering and manufacturing side in this team,” says Allison.

“If you were to go and dig through the boat you’d see there’s things in it that would interest a cooling engineer, a hydraulics engineer, a structural engineer, a composites engineer, a mechanical mechanisms guy, an aerodynamicist, you just name it.

“The full gamut of electronics, data acquisition sensors, for pretty much everything that makes up the backbone of an F1 team you could find some parts of an America’s Cup boat that they could work on and be excited by.

“So the type of people that we hope to bring to the party on this project will cover all the technical areas in our team, but not necessarily all at the same time.

“So at the moment, the type of people from the F1 world that are involved are some aerodynamicist type guys, some performance simulation type guys, software type guys, planners.”

“This is not in the pursuit of margin, but it is more in the pursuit of learning, of diversification for the benefit of Formula 1.

“And it’s a great new project for engineers that have earned their laurels in Formula 1, but want to look at something different. Having said that, it needs to stand on its own commercial legs.”

Anyone who can read knows the teams are exploiting all of the grey areas of the regulations. Before '23, these extracurricular projects did not have to be accounted for in how they benefit F1. Now they do.

Fair play to everyone involved for maximizing the regulatory blind spots if and when they are available. You can only play to the rules as they are written, at the time that they are written. I imagine Mercedes will have to operate under slightly different assumptions due to TD45.

There be Porpoises there, in the sea. Wonder if that's where they get them from

[TFSA]

I see the point you are trying to make, and to a certain extent I agree, however, there is is a difference when poaching staff from another team vs moving an engineer to a side project. The individual knowledge gained at other teams is captured under the cost cap for that team, meaning, someone had to pay cap dollars for the knowledge and experience. Since the cap is a limiting resource for all the teams, there is a shortage of experienced engineers across F1. Using a side project to train engineers circumvents the cost cap against all teams if that makes sense.

Further, the really valuable knowledge isn't the sort you learn from a book that you read on the weekend. The valuable knowledge is that which was learned through an iterative design process with prototypes and testing. A team could use a side project car to narrow down the shapes, sizes, and pathways for tunnels under the car that generate the best DF and then design their F1 car to utilize that "free" R&D knowledge.

I disagree. I don't care where knowledge or expertise comes from. If it's in peoples heads, it should be allowed. By that argument, you might as well ban Newey for being the only engineer/designer who has experience with previous ground effect cars. Or ban Max Verstappen from Sim-racing in his spare-time because that also makes him a better racer (yes, his paycheck is excepted from the cost cap, but on principle).

You can't police knowledge in peoples head. That simply isn't gonna work on a practical level. It shouldn't matter what expertise people have, or where they got it. Whether they've been working outside of F1 on special projects, been an F1 engineer for 40+ years, or have previous experience from other teams.

Knowledge is knowledge, and at the end of the day, you still have to raise a paycheck to match peoples expertise. And that comes under the cost cap if you want them working on your F1 car. If an engineer spends 3 years learning Aero at a Hypercar project, then he's gonna expect a higher paycheck than before he attained that knowledge. And if you aren't gonna pay him that paycheck, then chances are somebody else will.

[TFSA]

The RB17 is outside of F1 (indeed, outside of any rule set as it's a track-day special) - they can take any route they wish to design it. So they could start as an open wheel car and develop from there, for example. The point is that it's a project that could be used to circumvent the resource restrictions by simple doing stuff that is relevant for the F1 car and then have people go "oh, interesting" before going back to their F1 job.

Lots of ways for an F1 team to make use of that sort of resource.

People don't really think the RB17 is being done as a commercial proposition, do they?

Should have phrased my question different: How is that a problem? You are not allowed to bring in parts, designs or data attained outside of F1 without including it in the cost cap.

The only thing you can bring in around the cost cap is knowledge and expertise. And referring to my previous post above, knowledge and expertise can't be policed in any realistic way, and neither should it. Knowledge and expertise is policed automatically, in that people who are more knowledgeable and expertised will expect a higher paycheck.

[bigjj]

I see the point you are trying to make, and to a certain extent I agree, however, there is is a difference when poaching staff from another team vs moving an engineer to a side project. The individual knowledge gained at other teams is captured under the cost cap for that team, meaning, someone had to pay cap dollars for the knowledge and experience. Since the cap is a limiting resource for all the teams, there is a shortage of experienced engineers across F1. Using a side project to train engineers circumvents the cost cap against all teams if that makes sense.

Further, the really valuable knowledge isn't the sort you learn from a book that you read on the weekend. The valuable knowledge is that which was learned through an iterative design process with prototypes and testing. A team could use a side project car to narrow down the shapes, sizes, and pathways for tunnels under the car that generate the best DF and then design their F1 car to utilize that "free" R&D knowledge.

I disagree. I don't care where knowledge or expertise comes from. If it's in peoples heads, it should be allowed. By that argument, you might as well ban Newey for being the only engineer/designer who has experience with previous ground effect cars. Or ban Max Verstappen from Sim-racing in his spare-time because that also makes him a better racer (yes, his paycheck is excepted from the cost cap, but on principle).

You can't police knowledge in peoples head. That simply isn't gonna work on a practical level. It shouldn't matter what expertise people have, or where they got it. Whether they've been working outside of F1 on special projects, been an F1 engineer for 40+ years, or have previous experience from other teams.

Knowledge is knowledge, and at the end of the day, you still have to raise a paycheck to match peoples expertise. And that comes under the cost cap if you want them working on your F1 car. If an engineer spends 3 years learning Aero at a Hypercar project, then he's gonna expect a higher paycheck than before he attained that knowledge. And if you aren't gonna pay him that paycheck, then chances are somebody else will.

I agree, your repost is very convincing

[Just_a_fan]

The RB17 is outside of F1 (indeed, outside of any rule set as it's a track-day special) - they can take any route they wish to design it. So they could start as an open wheel car and develop from there, for example. The point is that it's a project that could be used to circumvent the resource restrictions by simple doing stuff that is relevant for the F1 car and then have people go "oh, interesting" before going back to their F1 job.

Lots of ways for an F1 team to make use of that sort of resource.

People don't really think the RB17 is being done as a commercial proposition, do they?

Should have phrased my question different: How is that a problem? You are not allowed to bring in parts, designs or data attained outside of F1 without including it in the cost cap.

The only thing you can bring in around the cost cap is knowledge and expertise. And referring to my previous post above, knowledge and expertise can't be policed in any realistic way, and neither should it. Knowledge and expertise is policed automatically, in that people who are more knowledgeable and expertised will expect a higher paycheck.

If your staff don't have the knowledge and experience and you can't bring in that knowledge/experience, then using a side-hustle to give your staff the knowledge is an alternative. Sadly, it's also illegal. And that's the point.

[TFSA]

If your staff don't have the knowledge and experience and you can't bring in that knowledge/experience, then using a side-hustle to give your staff the knowledge is an alternative. Sadly, it's also illegal. And that's the point.

No it isn't. It's perfectly legal. The new TD45 says that any intellectual property cannot be transferred, but it says nothing about people's knowledge/expertise.

Anything in peoples head is still perfectly within the rules. The challenge for the FIA is monitoring communication channels. That's why they are currently scrutinizing chat conversations etc. to make sure that F1 teams aren't somehow transferring anything tangible (data, designs) in via secrets channels.

But anything in peoples head is still perfectly legal, and using other projects for training your staff is also perfectly legal, as long as that time they spend there isn't spent working on F1.

I don't know why you would think otherwise.

[dans79]

No it isn't. It's perfectly legal. The new TD45 says that any intellectual property cannot be transferred, but it says nothing about people's knowledge/expertise.

Anything in peoples head is still perfectly within the rules. The challenge for the FIA is monitoring communication channels. That's why they are currently scrutinizing chat conversations etc. to make sure that F1 teams aren't somehow transferring anything tangible (data, designs) in via secrets channels.

But anything in peoples head is still perfectly legal, and using other projects for training your staff is also perfectly legal, as long as that time they spend there isn't spent working on F1.

I don't know why you would think otherwise.

It's cheating, plane and simple as far as I'm concerned!

[chrisc90]

No it isn't. It's perfectly legal. The new TD45 says that any intellectual property cannot be transferred, but it says nothing about people's knowledge/expertise.

Anything in peoples head is still perfectly within the rules. The challenge for the FIA is monitoring communication channels. That's why they are currently scrutinizing chat conversations etc. to make sure that F1 teams aren't somehow transferring anything tangible (data, designs) in via secrets channels.

But anything in peoples head is still perfectly legal, and using other projects for training your staff is also perfectly legal, as long as that time they spend there isn't spent working on F1.

I don't know why you would think otherwise.

It's cheating, plane and simple as far as I'm concerned!

So James Allison who has just returned after working on a sailing project….would be classed as cheating?

As TFSA said, the TD45 relates to the transfer of intellectual property. IE company B working on a front wing, DRS actuator or say innovative cooling radiators or fluids, cannot just give that data or design to a F1 team.

https://www.formulanerds.com/news/are-r ... explained/

[TFSA]

It's cheating, plane and simple as far as I'm concerned!

Simply stating that you believe it's cheating isn't constructive, and it doesn't add anything to the discussion. People need to attain their knowledge and expertise somewhere.

This is no different than what they do in Driver Academies, except it's for engineers instead of drivers. I don't think you have thought this through properly. Motorsport needs to retain and develop its pool of talent, including for engineering. This is in everyone's interest.

The cost cap gets in the way of that, and therefore it's perfectly reasonable that engineers can go develop their talents and knowledge in projects outside of the cost cap. Beyond talent retention, this is also necessary to ensure that these people aren't out of a job, and have to leave the motorsport scene as the cost cap gets progressively lowered.

It's up to the FIA to make sure that this doesn't get abused within the cost cap rules. But simply stating it's cheating and bad is missing the larger picture. In fact, it's plain ignorant.