So in 2020 Williams violated and was allowed to fix it with no penalties. Now in 2021 we have Red Bull and Aston Martin both in violation. Will they be afforded the same opportunity as Williams?
So in 2020 Williams violated and was allowed to fix it with no penalties. Now in 2021 we have Red Bull and Aston Martin both in violation. Will they be afforded the same opportunity as Williams?
If Shaila-Ann Rao former Mercedes employee and now FIA secretary tipped off Wolf, I Imagine RBR has one in the chamber ready to go to avoid some big penalty, and wonder if the Mercedes will be the target. I guess this is good timing since the championship has been decided.
In reply to trigun7469 :
Why would that matter? The FIA looked at the submitted documents, they were not turned in by Wolfe. As far as I know.
They clearly gained performance and it's now baked in so RBR needs to be punished in a such a way to allow other teams to catch up. A drastic cut in CFD and wind tunnel time or a freeze on any aero updates for the next 18 months? It sure taints the 2021 and 2022 Championships, though. I can see why Ferrari and Mercedes are livid
One of my colleagues had an interesting idea regarding the minor violations. Have the violating team give an amount equal to the violation to every other team. This would be added to the budget of the other teams , and subtracted from the budget of the violating team.
If RBR has overspent by $2m, then they would lose $18m from their 2023 budget of $135m, and every other team would have an additional $2m of Red Bull's money to spend to beat them.
If a minor violation doesn't result in any penalty, then the rule doesn't matter.
Javelin said:So in 2020 Williams violated and was allowed to fix it with no penalties. Now in 2021 we have Red Bull and Aston Martin both in violation. Will they be afforded the same opportunity as Williams?
From what I understand, Williams was penalized for turning their numbers in late, not for being over the cap. They paid a $25,000 fine for that. Aston Martin apparently also has a procedural violation, but are still under the cap. Only RB has gone over the cap.
I think the only penalty the FIA can implement is monetary. Some type of removing funding from next year (or this year if that's even possible) where they have less to spend.
Points removal would open up another loophole. For example, if Williams knows they'll only score a few points (lets say 10) and will stay at the bottom, why not overspend by a bunch, say 50%, knowing the worse infraction would be 5 points removed. Wouldn't change their standing in the championship, but they'd have an extra $72.5 million to spend. Assuming, of course, Williams could find an extra $72.5 million......
-Rob
In reply to alfadriver :
The process of auditing the team's accounts is supposed to be confidential, Wolf outed the rumor, before the FIA certified it. Why have procedural rules when you don't abide by them, you might as well open the books to everyone, so we can see what teams are spending money on week to week. In such a political climate of F1 having a mole to feed you information, sounds like a advantage. As a Ferrari fan RBR being a penalized opens the door to closer competition RBR seemed leaps and bounds over everyone else so 2023 might be more exciting.
In reply to trigun7469 :
All it really did was take the shine off of RBR's championship. Other than that, the rumors resulted in nothing. Well, other than Horner pretending that he'll sue.
Also, the concept of the rumor is pretty easy to come up with, considering that the delay meant that Red Bull would win the championship before the re-scheduled announcement happened. RBR winning was almost a formality, so that kind of delay really points the investigation to them.
Knowing how much RBR overspent helps a little, as each team has their own idea of cost/time. But in the fine terms of catching up- knowing the spend amount isn't all that helpful. Perhaps it directs to areas, but unless you know how many items the overspend covers- you can't see if it's one big help or 20 small ones that all add up to X seconds.
If there's any hope for closer competition, that will have to take some time to bring the rest of the teams up to where red bull overspent to get. Hardly going to take a single weekend.
Since I have watched F1 I have been fascinated at the flow of insider intelligence that goes on between teams. They are a sport and also a community, sort of, many are clustered around the same 20+ venues each year or even more if living around the UK based team shops. So Toto or anyone in MB hearing from some pipe fitter contractor at their kid's birthday party that he was just repairing some rapid prototype coolant lines at RBR for their new run of floor for the cars in 2020 isn't some major conspiracy. Extremely easy to back calculate how much that may have cost RBR. Add all the rumors up plus what they see at the tracks and it should be easy for any team to guess at total budgets of other teams.
The cost cap concept should have extremely tough penalties otherwise it opens MANY loopholes for the teams to jump through. If RBR internally know they screwed up it might work for them to just concede the 2021 championship as MB won't really celebrate it and Lewis would ignore the 8* next to his name and go for #9 to feel it was proper. Heck it might distabilize MB for RBR to make that move.
I know that I think that Michael Masi supremely screwed up last year, and although he got what he deserved, F1 left the 2021 season with egg on their face and Max an asterisk next to his win.
The problem is that they can't just fire Masi again. And this creates even more doubt over the validity of Max's championship.
If there was a violation, dunno if Max would have been privy to that. But I'd be willing to bet Horner knew all about it and it wasnt a "mistake". If there is a cost cap and you have a team that is likely paid millions to keep an eye on budget as it is a "cap" you've got nobody to blame but yourself. However, If RBR is massaging poorly written rules to fit their agenda, well then the onus is on the FIA to write better rules.
I don't know that Max "deserves" to lose his title (I personally dont like Max at all)... but if the FIA wants to avoid looking like the tail is wagging the dog which will fuel "Latifi purposfully wrecked" and "Tsunoda purposefully drew a safety car" level conspiracies over the next decade of racing, they are gonna have to do something clear and decisive. (But I dont think they will.)
In reply to vozproto :
I'm not sure why Max would avoid penalty- if they go that way. The performance he got directly affected how fast and how competitive he ended up being.
And that speed is likely to have carried over to this season- since RBR was spending 2021 money on the 2022 car.
Just because Max didn't know doesn't mean he should get the benefit of the doubt- he directly benefited from the over spend. Can't really brush that off. There's no conspiracy in that- it's just simple that he gained speed and won races because of the overspend.
Assuming they go to the points direction.
The financial, aero, and modeling penalties seem more likely- and they can be really significant- where there would be no development available once the car was released in 2023.
Agreed. If they go that way, Max shouldn't avoid the penalty. He is part of the team, and if the team gets penalized so should he as — as you noted — he directly benefited from it. I have not brushed that off.
As much as I dislike Max, I noted that I didnt know if he "deserved" the penalty as a matter of whose wrongdoing it was. As much as I dislike his attitude and overly aggressive style, he is a talented 25 yr old. His whole career could be tainted by 2021 and 2022 due to Horner's dealings. That sucks. But again, if RBR gets hit, so should Max.
Frankly, I'm over the 2021 season. I think it should have been Hamilton's championship (and perhaps it will be), but regardless of how that shakes out 2021 will always have an asterisk next to it. And now it looks like 2022 may as well.
Why is it so hard to have the penalties in the rulebook? Example if you are $.01 to $1 Million you lose XYZ Constructors points and your fine is $XX Million Dollars. Are they afraid that a back marker like Williams or Haas would take the risk and try and get ahead somehow? Honestly is the Cap working? same 3 teams are still pretty far ahead.
In reply to DrMikeCSI :
I shouldn't be suprised the FIA is moving slowly but lets chop chop Red Bull down if guilty :)
I guess there is only HAAS and Williams left to fill a seat?
Bottas and Ricciardo may just be the Coulthards of this generation, just never able to get to the top spot but better than many on the grid over their careers.
I am actually excited for 2023 to see if the cost cap (bar cheaters) actually accelerates the closing up of the grid year to year. Plus the rookies of Piastri, DeVries, and probably Sargeant and I hope a rookie at HAAS.
In reply to Advan046 :
So the speculation I've seen is about Sargeant finishing his season to get is super license. The speculation goes onto say he's getting Latifi's seat.
We will see....
But having 3 new rookies plus all of the talented new blood that has come into F1 in the last few years- the future looks fun to watch!
trigun7469 said:Why is it so hard to have the penalties in the rulebook? Example if you are $.01 to $1 Million you lose XYZ Constructors points and your fine is $XX Million Dollars. Are they afraid that a back marker like Williams or Haas would take the risk and try and get ahead somehow? Honestly is the Cap working? same 3 teams are still pretty far ahead.
Because it removes the ambiguity to punish based on what team it is.
For years the FIA was jokingly referred to as Ferrari International Assistance.
In reply to z31maniac :
They continued with the theme as recent as '19 when regarding Ferrari and their engine breaching the rules.
Sealed the findings,no fines or penalties.
If they do the same now with RB they should be removed from controlling anything.
F1 is a joke now. RBR, and their fan base, is/has destroyed its integrity through the FIA and Liberty. Briatore got a life ban after Crashgate, yet nothing so far with this fiasco. The notion that 7 million would be a minor infraction is crazy. That more than an entire car. A ton of upgrades can cover that, as well as development time/research. Unless RBR loses all points for 21 AND 22, the rule is pointless
kevlarcorolla said:In reply to z31maniac :
They continued with the theme as recent as '19 when regarding Ferrari and their engine breaching the rules.
Sealed the findings,no fines or penalties.
If they do the same now with RB they should be removed from controlling anything.
Since they normally finish 2-3rd in the championship, one can think that them finishing 6th in 2020 did cost them many millions of prize money. But since they get an extra bonus for just being Ferrari, it's less of an impact.
The really bad part of that whole thing was the lack of transparency- nobody had any idea what they did wrong. And that's actually quite important for Mercedes, Renault, and Honda- to triple check they don't try the same loophole.
MoneyGram Haas F1
Sounds so stable just like Rich Energy Haas F1 was. Man those were some good times for Haas......
I do honestly hope it works out.
In reply to Advan046 :
The big difference being MoneyGram actually has money, their checks will clear.. Unlike those from Rich Energy...
In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
They have been around for a long time, and the announcement is pretty timely, since MoneyGram is HQ'd in Dallas. And according to Reuters, they have a pretty strong overall balance sheet- having quite a few more assets than debts. Not a huge company, like and auto OEM, but pretty significant in the movement of money. Based on the Market Cap, they are considerably smaller than the team owner corporation ($1B vs. $43B).
Still, compared to Rich Energy- well, you really can't compare them. So I have more optimism that it will work out.
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