The F1 thread

stickyfiddle

Aaaand we got there eventually. Good race for the 45 mins or so that we did get. Max fully deserves the title this time round. 

Not sure wtf was going on with the tractor on track though. Utter failure from the marshals. I can buy an argument that Gasly was maybe going too fast and maybe there wasn't anywhere else the thing could have been but at the very least it should have been lit up like a Christmas tree

thumpingrug

Totally agree about the tractor.  Given that this is where Jules Bianchi lost his life to a tractor on track, you would hope some lessons might have been learnt.  

Great half race and whilst no MV fan, he has dominated this year and deserves the title.

At least the next few races are at a more reasonable time.

chillidoggy

Short of covering all the F1 race tracks to prevent rain, it was the best of a bad job.

Max deserved the title this year, even if I'm grumpy because it hasn't gone down to the wire.

Boromedic

chillidoggy said:

Short of covering all the F1 race tracks to prevent rain, it was the best of a bad job.

Max deserved the title this year, even if I'm grumpy because it hasn't gone down to the wire.

I bet you've been fapping yerself silly all morning over your pictures of Christian and Max haven't you..... dreaming of sharing their champagne

TimmyO

It’s a shame that because it’s such a sensitive subject that we’re all having to gloss over Gasly driving too fast under double waved yellows. Swap the tractor for a marshall and the perspective shifts a bit. 

The tractor shouldn’t have been there - slam dunk, not arguing otherwise. 

stickyfiddle

TimmyO said:

It’s a shame that because it’s such a sensitive subject that we’re all having to gloss over Gasly driving too fast under double waved yellows. Swap the tractor for a marshall and the perspective shifts a bit. 

The tractor shouldn’t have been there - slam dunk, not arguing otherwise. 

Yeah I don't disagree with that - it's entirely possible for both parties to be in the wrong. 

fretmeister

I just read on Twitter that the FIA's head of financial investigations is..... Alpha Tauri's former CFO.

Mmmm....

chillidoggy

Boromedic said:

chillidoggy said:

Short of covering all the F1 race tracks to prevent rain, it was the best of a bad job.

Max deserved the title this year, even if I'm grumpy because it hasn't gone down to the wire.

I bet you've been fapping yerself silly all morning over your pictures of Christian and Max haven't you..... dreaming of sharing their champagne

Nope.

As always, the best driver/team combination won, but like I said, I much prefer it if the championship gets decided at the last race, it’s much more exciting that way. For me, the rest of the season will be decidedly less enjoyable as a result.

fretmeister

Redbull guilty of a MINOR overspend.

IIRC that's up to $8 million or thereabouts.

stickyfiddle

So they probably systematically spent 4.9% extra. 

“2021 is the only year we’ll get away with an overspend because it’s new regs so the penalties won’t be so harsh. More importantly, it will give us a leg-up with the new aero regs which will see us through 5 years of upside. If max doesn’t win 2021 then who cares because he’ll win in 2022. If Max does win in 21 they’ll never dare take that away after the fact…”

I note the comments section On the motorsport.com article won’t load. I assume the server has packed up and gone home!!!

RiftAmps

fretmeister said:

Redbull guilty of a MINOR overspend.

IIRC that's up to $8 million or thereabouts.

Yup, very interesting, it could be anywhere from just $1 all the way up to $7.5million. Wonder if we'll find out how much?

Amazing that RBs chosen independent auditors (one of the big three?) managed to cock that up though. RB will be furious I'm sure.

Not quite the "massive breach" that Toto was peddling, which shows it's not worth listening to the rumours.

RB needs to be punished, of course. Interesting to see what the FIA do.


Full FIA report - https://www.fia.com/news/fia-completes-review-under-2021-fia-formula-1-financial-regulations

Financial regs - https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/fia_formula_1_financial_regulations_iss.12.pdf

fretmeister

#CostsCapChampion is trending!  

Boromedic

Not exactly news though is it, Red Bull cheated way to 2021 Drivers title, yep we already know they did, and now they've shown they cheated financially too. They should be stripped of the drivers title and removed from the constructors and all prize monies repaid.

Just in case anyone thinks this is because then Lewis takes the title, no it should be like the TDF when Lance won, just show it as no winner. They need to be punished pretty harshly because otherwise it almost proves it's worth cheating.

Cols

Up to $7.25 million.  Of course; that’s not to say the calculated overspend was $7.25MM; that’s just the ceiling before you hit major overspend.

The FIA now have the sticky task of deciding whether to mete out any meaningful punishment.  If they don’t, the teams will just regard cost cap + 5% as being the new ceiling.

I’m reminded of a quote from a US Navy admiral: “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission”.  Well played, Red Bull.

stickyfiddle

So potential penalties…?

Safe to assume they won’t take either of Max’s titles away as that would be such a huge PR disaster. 

A simple fine would be pointless because we know these guys have huge pockets. Even if it’s a 10x fine that just means cheating is legal if you have enough cash. 

How about they give every team the amount they overspent by? So every team gets ~5m from Red Bull and that amount  is added to their cost cap for next year? Or maybe even double that?!

And take the same amount off RB’s cap for the next 2 seasons?

Cols

Exclusion from the next race or two.  No US or Mexican GP for them, ouch.

fretmeister

fretmeister

This is the problem with a minor breach.

If the penalty for a minor breach is smaller than the benefit from purposely breaching up to 5% then all the teams will do it all the time.

It's like when 30 years ago the maximum fine for dumping old oil barrels at sea was $100,000 per day... which was way cheaper than the cost to clean and recycle them. So the oil companies just viewed the fines as an overhead and happily kept throwing them overboard.

RiftAmps

Interesting article on the next steps and process moving forward - https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/what-happens-now-with-f1s-cost-cap-rule-breakers/10382816/

sinbaadi

Exclude them from the first two rounds of 2023 and deduct 2x the amount of the breach from each of the next two seasons' budget.