What I've heard is it's more to do with the new Red Bull Powertrains arm and its employees and how they divide expenses between the two different entities. Particularly employees who moved from RBR to RBP and their salaries.
F1 2022 Season
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Difference between Leclerc's and Perez tires 
His two biggest "mistakes" this season came in the same situation when he was expected to cope with quicker opposition on terrible tires. The narrative that he doesn't have what it takes to win the championship is ridiculous.
Max is different level to anyone else this year(but even he's made some mistakes), but Leclerc was easily second best driver this year.
Btw I'd say Alonso was easily third too, he's had a very good season.
His two biggest "mistakes" this season came in the same situation when he was expected to cope with quicker opposition on terrible tires. The narrative that he doesn't have what it takes to win the championship is ridiculous.
Max is different level to anyone else this year(but even he's made some mistakes), but Leclerc was easily second best driver this year.
Btw I'd say Alonso was easily third too, he's had a very good season.
i don’t think you can look further than latifi for driver of the year. he’s able to drive mostly the right way round for at least some of the weekend, despite having a fraction of the skill and talent of the rest of the grid.
Those are Max's tyres, you can see the number 1, but I heard Perez's didn't look much different.Difference between Leclerc's and Perez tires
His two biggest "mistakes" this season came in the same situation when he was expected to cope with quicker opposition on terrible tires. The narrative that he doesn't have what it takes to win the championship is ridiculous.
Max is different level to anyone else this year(but even he's made some mistakes), but Leclerc was easily second best driver this year.
Btw I'd say Alonso was easily third too, he's had a very good season.
if they did look better i’m sure perez would have been made to swap them any way.
That's Leclerc and Super Max, I believe - not Perez.Difference between Leclerc's and Perez tires
His two biggest "mistakes" this season came in the same situation when he was expected to cope with quicker opposition on terrible tires. The narrative that he doesn't have what it takes to win the championship is ridiculous.
Max is different level to anyone else this year(but even he's made some mistakes), but Leclerc was easily second best driver this year.
Btw I'd say Alonso was easily third too, he's had a very good season.
As to who the second best driver is, the scoreboard says Checo
This may have been discussed in the thread but regarding the Red Bull cost cap breach, the budget was $145m according to Sky, so the "minor" breach of less than 5% means any amount less than $7,250,000.
Seems to me that you could hire a shed load of really good engineers for that extra money.
Seems to me that you could hire a shed load of really good engineers for that extra money.
no, it went on birthday cakes for max and the two weeks barbara in finance had off with thrush
That's barely enough to pay sick pay or Horners mums bus pass, apparently.
And that is the problem isn't it. F1 and the FIA keep preaching that they have to be transparent.
But few if any believe that.
I don't believe in conspiracy theories. But Red Bull do seem to be on the right end of recent decisions.
The issue is whether the overspend was an error. Or a conscious decision to deceive. And only the Chief Financial Officer will actually know that.
To me, it doesn't matter if it was RB or Williams for example. The other 9 teams must not be put at any disadvantage.
And that boils down to the FIA getting absolute clarity from RB and taking the correct course of action.
Am I confident of that. Highly unlikely.
Alonso has had a weird season, good but not amazing and he does trail Ocon in the standings. Plenty of life in the old dog yet, his timing at changing teams continues to be impeccably bad.
Agreed.
As others have said, 5% is rather significant for development levels and often thresholds are much lower for technical regulations.
He's had lot of bad luck with his car and some situations on some tracks, especially in first part of the season, but in the second 2/3 of the season I think his pace has been great.
That's Leclerc and Super Max, I believe - not Perez.
As to who the second best driver is, the scoreboard says Checo
Yeah, that's Max's car, my bad. Nicked it from another site and they've said it's Perez's and I didn't watch anything else except the tires.
Funnily enough they have hired a bunch of people from other teams and have paid them big wages / joining bonus .
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I was reading about the budget cap today, and it's a bit more complicated than I had though. Wouldn't be F1 without that, I guess! This site does a good job at summarizing things:
So catering would indeed actually be excluded! Or part of it, anyway. But since no details have come out yet about what Red Bull did wrong specifically, it might have nothing to do with catering or anything else that's been mentioned so far anyway.
Source: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/motorsport/news/f1-cost-cap-breaches-punished-red-bull-budget-cap/
So catering would indeed actually be excluded! Or part of it, anyway. But since no details have come out yet about what Red Bull did wrong specifically, it might have nothing to do with catering or anything else that's been mentioned so far anyway.
The FIA really are making a bigger mess of all this. It's like they are deliberately not releasing all the information, so later on they can down play everything and give a slap on the wrist. If they truly wanted transparency, then just posting the actual totals with their announcement would have helped.
My guess would be on them fining RB and undisclosed amount, and then never announcing how much RB were actually over. Then hope to sweep everything under the rug, and hope the fans forget about the whole matter.
My guess would be on them fining RB and undisclosed amount, and then never announcing how much RB were actually over. Then hope to sweep everything under the rug, and hope the fans forget about the whole matter.
It's very simple really, if they were 2% over, then next year they should have a cost cap of 98% of everyone else's. It doesn't matter whether it's an honest mistake or intentional really, either way they would have gained an advantage. How they cut back to that 98% would be up to them, could sack people, ask people to take a pay cut, spend less on the car. Each of those courses of action would have its own risks and that's their problem to manage.
If you think it's intentional then you could hand them a fine as well, but the main thing is that it's clear the only fair course of action would be to reduce their cap.
If you think it's intentional then you could hand them a fine as well, but the main thing is that it's clear the only fair course of action would be to reduce their cap.
Agreed.
Worth mentioning that due to the complexity and vagaries of the budget cap, it is possible that some teams, maybe RB main competitors could have also been less than 5% under the cap.
So the cumulative effect could have been a bit bigger than RB actuals.
We should not expect that every other team hit the budget cap on the nose.
So your point is a good one. Any underspend by the rest of the teams ought to be credited to their future allowances.
The benefits of a 2% overspend in year one are not constrained to that year. They spill over into future years.
As an example, if you bring e.g. a new floor with 5 races to go and a rival team doesn't as they want to stick within the rules, the first team could hypothetically score more constructor points (and therefore get more prize money), potentially win a title, and have 5 more races testing that floor in race conditions.
Giving an equal cap reduction next just moves the benchmark for all the teams to accept a minor breach and spend beyond the budget cap when competitively advantageous. A cap should be a cap and equal for all teams, not a guideline to be gamed.
It's pretty obvious it wasn't an accidental mistake. No other team on the grid, not even AT, had the same interpretation as them. They clearly felt the punishment would be worth the crime.
I think this is a bit simplistic. Firstly in your example there has been 0 punishment, 2% over spend last year, 2% under spend this year, its a wash and teams will start to pick and chose when to overspend. For example last year Merc could have said "sod it, spend another million or two" because a hugely increased chance of a title this year is better than being able to spend the full amount next year when you have no idea what the other teams might do. Secondly, if the extra punishment for intentional is just a fine, then the cost cap has failed and richer teams wouldn't care.
In reality the only real way to punish teams for overspending on a car is sporting, and not just in the year of the overspend, but subsequent years. Fines will mean nothing, reduction in wind tunnel time/caps (unless hugely scaled up, e.g. 2.5% overspend becomes 7.5% cap reducttion) won't always deter due to the above loigic and it will become a game of when teams decide its a good idea to break the rules.
It boggles my mind that we see Olympians, cyclists, football teams etc. having titles removed to due doping/cheating, but in F1 we're hand wringing saying "oh no, we couldn't possibly to do that". Total rubbish, if you are financially doped past a certain nominal amount (e.g. $100k) then the car is just as illegal as a wing that is 0.2mm too big/small and should be DQd. Further, the fact the title was awarded 10 months ago, ceremoinies held is 100% irrelevant because this is tthe schedule on which the cost caps are checked. If RBR spend 20% more than allowed the argument it was 10 months ago would clearly be asinine, as it is now.
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The director was too busy showing LH unsuccessful battle with Ocon and Perez and Charles duel.
Did Japanese GP ended a lap too early? Didn't Max cross the finish line before the timer ended? If yes shouldn't there have been one more lap?
I was reading the rules and the only way I think that can happen is if Red Bull take it to the panel/court.
An ABA can't have points deductions. All teams agreed to this.
"An ABA may impose any Financial Penalty or Minor Sporting Penalties that would be available to
the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel pursuant to Article 9 in respect of the relevant type
of breach, save that the Cost Cap Administration shall not be entitled to impose the
Minor Sporting Penalties specified in Articles 9.1(b)(ii), 9.1(b)(iii) and 9.1(b)(vi);"
9.1bii and 9.1bii are the points deductions.
So no points deductions for an ABA?
Surely Red Bull will just do that then? No point risking a panel of that's the case.
So if Red Bull do take it to the panel or court they would need to be very confident they would win
Apparently not because the 3 hour limit is a hard limit. But I haven't seen it confirmed
They'd only take it beyond an ABA if they were absolutely certain the FIA were not following their own rulebook.
It'll be a case of haggling to exclude some of these expenses RB thought wouldn't count to the cap, and "paying" for that with a more robust looking penalty, probably wind tunnel reduction.
Yeah I'd agree with that. They'd want to be 99.9% certain they are in the right to go to a panel.
Surprised the media hasn't picked up on this point when discussing potential penalties.
The fact Agreed Breach Agreement specifically excludes any points deductions it just makes it the obvious choice.
It's like in football even if innocent or you think you are you often don't appeal because it just makes the punishment worse if you lose
They don’t want anything getting in the way of their headlines, the tabloids and sky have run riot with click bait headlines about points deductions for 4 news cycles now.
There’s more substance when the daily star link united with a move for mbappe.
This is absolutely horrendous by FIA again, they set the rules to even the game but again it´s been shown they don´t know how to follow their own rules.
Brawn said it best at the time these caps were implemented that any breaking would need to have big consequences otherwise everyone would go over it if the penalty wasn´t severe.
Once I agree with Toto that over 5m spend makes a huge difference when it comes to part development. The penalty should of course be more then a fine because all the big teams can easily overspend and then just pay a fine.
Brawn said it best at the time these caps were implemented that any breaking would need to have big consequences otherwise everyone would go over it if the penalty wasn´t severe.
Once I agree with Toto that over 5m spend makes a huge difference when it comes to part development. The penalty should of course be more then a fine because all the big teams can easily overspend and then just pay a fine.
Alledgely one of the main sticking points of disagreement between FIA and RedBull is around the £10mil a year Adrian Newey is paid. He wasn't listed as one of the 3 people at the team exempt from the budget cap. RB paid him as a contractor, therefore the £10mil he gets paid isnt in the budget cap as RB see it. FIA see it differently and that he should be a part of the budget cap.
Agree the optics for FIA look bad on this.
Newey is an integral part of Red Bull's development team. The idea that his salary should not be part of the budget cap is ridiculous.
Actually it's not.
Your top 3 paid employees are exempt from the cost cap
Allegedly Red Bull are saying he counts as top 3 as he is an integral part of the team and is in the top 3 paid.
However the rumour is as Newey is officially a contractor that he doesn't count as an employee and is therefore not exempt. Although I read the rules and it says contractors can qualify so not sure if AMUS got this rumour wrong.
(Top engineers in the industry often set themselves up as a consultant as you make a lot more money not being tied down)
Then the question becomes what happened in the dry run last season? Was he allowed to be counted as a top 3 exemption?
So at Merc Toto plus two others wouldn't count for them for example.
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Its another FIA fiasco really.
I don’t know why, but somehow that would make it even more funny. I’m not sure it’s about not being tied down so much as it is avoiding plenty of tax.
Oh yeah for sure but it's standard practice in engineering. It's not at F1 thing. And I'm sure Newey has been employed by Red Bull like this way since long long before there was ever a cap. It's not something set up to try subvert it as in fact it has zero benefit from a cost cap point of view but it does have a a negative effect if this rumour is in fact true.
Essentially it would means Red Bull went over on the semantics that the FIA don't consider Newey an "employee". Although I actually doubt this rumour is true or atleast not in how it's being described.
Top engineers almost always set themselves up as contractors/consultants.
Otherwise you leave money and opportunities on the table.
I'm sure other teams will have similar with their engineers but if it's not a top 3 employee then it's irrelevant as only those are exempt.
If Newey is a contractor, which according to companies house under Racing Services LTD would suggest he is, then he wouldn't be classed as an employee and just a supplier to Red Bull. So the services he's provided under this guise since joining Red Bull probably wouldn't be exempt under the cost cap, even if he's one of the top three earners at Red Bull.
That's the theory by AMUS anyway. Although reading the rules it seems to say a contractor can qualify as a top 3 earner for exemption so that contradicts the entire rumor really.
We just don't have enough info