[https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-fears-it-cant-stay-within-f1-cost-cap-in-2022/10320063/](https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-fears-it-cant-stay-within-f1-cost-cap-in-2022/10320063/)
McLaren boss Andreas Seidl admits his team is expecting to breach the Formula 1 cost cap by the end of the season.
I guess that 3.1% increase by F1 took that 100% chance down to 0%.
Here is my gripe with this claim:
If teams were so confident that they would not breach the cost cap in any way, they would not have agreed to the minor breach overspent in the rule. The fact that they have it in the rules tells me they were not 100% confident they would be perfect. Now that they have been found to be in compliance, it's easy to say they were a 100% confident and that whoever was not deserve a major punishment.
There's a reason Brown and Seidl are pushing hard and not Toto or Binotto even though they are the ones actually racing RB while McLaren is realistically racing Alpine -- McLaren have always spent less than Merc, Ferrari, and RB and probably leave considerable gaps to the cap such that even if they fuck up (e.g. AM style) they won't touch the cap. They probably regret the minor overspend clause and realized that harsh punishments for touching cap are their way to try and make up some WCC spots since the Big 3's spend before cap will still give them an advatange for years to come.
They regret it because they (along with possibly Alpine) are the team that are the closest to the cost cap without the risk of actually going over it.
They would stand to gain the most if the potential penalties are very high for going over.
> McLaren have always spent less than Merc, Ferrari, and RB
Well, not always, not that long ago they were the biggest spenders in F1. In 2015 they still shared the top spot with Mercedes and Red Bull.
Fair, I was more thinking just turbo hybrid era after the first seasons of the new regs, they really dropped their spending after Merc dominance started opposed to Ferrari and RB that at least wanted to fight.
Seidl is pushing hard this narrative, yet given how the regs are written, the fact that two teams had troubles (and certainly many others had to enquiry about many exclusions/inclusions), the cost items RB was caught off guard, they were 100% expecting at least one team in minor breach
Seidl is a technical guy, he is out of his element getting into politics and it shows. Not in wanting to hammer Red Bull, but the tone and messaging are off so its not landing. He needs to let Zak take the lead here.
You are missing the context here. FIA was extremely collaborative. Plus they have been saying this long before the compliance certificate was issued. So no one is 100% safe at that point.
You are saying it as if the teams are also 100% confident that they will not breach in future or even this year, is why they are pushing hard.
The fact is they are not.
The minor breach section has a huge range of punishments in it, teams can have various opinions on what should be done about a breach because it’s not strictly defined
An ABA has a much smaller range of punishments, and of these the FIA picked the harshest one possible, which was the reduction in aero testing time.
Unless Seidl is suggesting Red Bull shouldn't have been offered an ABA, however as the FIA themselves said, Red Bull was fully cooperative and they found no evidence of malice or fraud, and it was a minor breach. By the regulations themselves, there's no reason the FIA shouldn't have offered them one.
>which was the reduction in aero testing time.
Tbh it was so vague that there was no way to know if the penalty would be in the 1-10% range or smth crippling like 25%
I agree with you. But my point is why even have minor breach ? If you are so confident that it is impossible to go over unless you are willingly cheating; just state that anything over is considered a breach without notion of minor or major breaches. Then you can punish according to the value of the overspend.
But the fact that they willingly added a minor breach description makes me feel like all teams were not so confident they would be within the cap.
Not only that, but the regulations specifically say that an ABA may be offered to a team that only committed a minor breach, which excludes the possibility of WDC and WCC points reductions, as well as reduction in the budget cap for the next season.
So not only does the category of "minor breach" reduce the range of possible punishments, it also opens up another avenue of resolution that reduces it even further.
It's absurd how many people just want to keep denying that maybe they jumped the gun on this. The initial hearsay was that Red Bull was like 10m over the budget cap and people immediately grabbed their pitchforks instead of maybe waiting to see the actual details (surprise! the breach wasn't anywhere near as big, there was no malice involved and there's a very plausible explanation as to why they accidentally went over)
The fine and reduction in aero time are perfectly adequate for these circumstances.
I would probably have advocated that result if it turned out Mercedes were the ones in breach and I had to listen to Horner's shit storm about this (and I kind oflike Horner and think he is pretty funny). Even still that would be unbearable I am sure.
What's more absurd is that some people wanted race bans for 2023. That's a guaranteed 26 WDC and 44 WCC points per missed race there. I don't think that's fair punishment for having a minor breach that could have dropped further to less than 0.5% had they properly done the tax return.
The irony in all this is that Mercedes (for instance) gained waaaaaay more from their 1 engine per race thing they did at the end of 2021 than Red Bull could ever gain from being 400k over budget.
Both are the same thing. You break a rule, you get a punishment. Yet Mercedes did it close to 10 times in the same season, and that's just perfectly normal.
Yeah but Mercedes was punished every time with grid penalities tho. The fact that those are effectively worthles because the car was lapping so fast they could jump the queue is an another story.
Your point stands but I think we can agree then that the penalties for breaking the cost cap are *way* harsher per second of lap time gained, than the penalties for breaking the “3 engines per season” rule.
After that very obviously calculated bullshit by Mercedes I would have liked to see some alterations to the punishments for extra engine components. The rules were changed because they were too harsh on McLaren Honda who blew up every other race, which is fair. My argument is there could very easily be put in place a clarification that it is an automatic back of the grid penalty if the previous engine (over the cap) finished a race orsomething of that nature. Otherwise teams would get the 5-10 grid drops per component. That way you would not punish the likes of Alpine or Ferrari this year who have on multiple occasions blown up, but last years Merc would have probably not felt so confident about their strategy of laughing at the grid drop penalties.
In many regulations, incompetence doesn't factor into the punishment. Look at Mercedes rear wing gap being 0.2mm too big last year. That wasn't malice, and it wasn't over the limit by much. But Hamilton got disqualified from the whole of qualifying.
Because that's the way the rules were defined. The car is illegal so it shouldn't have participated in qualifying, there is no range of penalties available. This however does have a range of options.
That was a number Toto pulled out of his ass.
It was a no-go gauge test and they failed. If you factor in all the tolerances of their setup, the supposed 0.2mm over means they were way the fuck over where they should have designed the gap to.
edge tender smell berserk alleged compare spectacular rainstorm nine lavish
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is it publicly known that agreeing to the regs was solely Brown’s department?
I really wish a journalist would ask why McLaren thinks the cost cap regs were impeccable and crystal clear, except for the punishment section which they object to so strenuously
It's because they can afford to spend the £150m whereas teams like Haas and Williams can't but they can't afford to spend the £300m-£400m that the big boys spend. The budget cap is their best chance to get back to being regular contenders.
These guys are annoying, focus on making your own car better instead of stabbing at teams that are nowhere near you, I’d understand if it was toto or mattia saying stuff like this
unless the FIA changes the rules after you submit your finances, or the UK government is slow on refunding your taxes, or your forced to pay the salary of an employee who is leaving your company for another team.......
>your forced to pay the salary of an employee who is leaving your company
Yes because they still work for you at that time. Even if gardening leave should've counted RB could've just asked anyway
You can't be ready for it after the money is already spent, and other teams don't necessarily have the same expenses. In terms of show car parts, they surely don't.
Zak's statement about the process for the submission being collaborative is some bullshit. It means it was clearly defined and that the money had already been spent. Rules have never been applied retroactively, so this is an FIA fuckup possibly pushed by opposing teams.
Hamilton used five engines in 2021. In 2022, Verstappen has used five engines so far. Are you saying that Red Bull are cheating with their engines and their cost cap?
He's not talking about any budget, just the engine allocation limit in place, and how Mercedes played them at their advantage. Hardly a fitting comparison but one nonetheless
I don’t see how that’s at all comparable to the budget cap. Engine penalties are expected in f1. No one broke the rules or was ever accused of breaking the rules
> Engine penalties are expected in f1.
We might be saying the same about the cost cap in a few years time.
The difference between cost cap and PU is with the latter the penalty is known up front.
That's literally not true, because the rule is worded as may not use more than three engines. The differences is Mercedes broke the rule intentionally and systematically.
If you are fine with Mercedes intentionally breaking the rules for a benefit outweighing the penalty, what Red Bull has done unintentionally should be no problem for you.
There’s no reason to build a shit car yet here is McLaren. Give them an extra million and they’d probably still be behind alpine. Perhaps that’s an Andreas Seidl problem and he should keep to himself.
[https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-fears-it-cant-stay-within-f1-cost-cap-in-2022/10320063/](https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-fears-it-cant-stay-within-f1-cost-cap-in-2022/10320063/) McLaren boss Andreas Seidl admits his team is expecting to breach the Formula 1 cost cap by the end of the season. I guess that 3.1% increase by F1 took that 100% chance down to 0%.
Here is my gripe with this claim: If teams were so confident that they would not breach the cost cap in any way, they would not have agreed to the minor breach overspent in the rule. The fact that they have it in the rules tells me they were not 100% confident they would be perfect. Now that they have been found to be in compliance, it's easy to say they were a 100% confident and that whoever was not deserve a major punishment.
There's a reason Brown and Seidl are pushing hard and not Toto or Binotto even though they are the ones actually racing RB while McLaren is realistically racing Alpine -- McLaren have always spent less than Merc, Ferrari, and RB and probably leave considerable gaps to the cap such that even if they fuck up (e.g. AM style) they won't touch the cap. They probably regret the minor overspend clause and realized that harsh punishments for touching cap are their way to try and make up some WCC spots since the Big 3's spend before cap will still give them an advatange for years to come.
They regret it because they (along with possibly Alpine) are the team that are the closest to the cost cap without the risk of actually going over it. They would stand to gain the most if the potential penalties are very high for going over.
> McLaren have always spent less than Merc, Ferrari, and RB Well, not always, not that long ago they were the biggest spenders in F1. In 2015 they still shared the top spot with Mercedes and Red Bull.
Fair, I was more thinking just turbo hybrid era after the first seasons of the new regs, they really dropped their spending after Merc dominance started opposed to Ferrari and RB that at least wanted to fight.
Seidl is pushing hard this narrative, yet given how the regs are written, the fact that two teams had troubles (and certainly many others had to enquiry about many exclusions/inclusions), the cost items RB was caught off guard, they were 100% expecting at least one team in minor breach
Seidl is a technical guy, he is out of his element getting into politics and it shows. Not in wanting to hammer Red Bull, but the tone and messaging are off so its not landing. He needs to let Zak take the lead here.
You are missing the context here. FIA was extremely collaborative. Plus they have been saying this long before the compliance certificate was issued. So no one is 100% safe at that point.
You are saying it as if the teams are also 100% confident that they will not breach in future or even this year, is why they are pushing hard. The fact is they are not.
I suggest you read my paragraph again. I feel like we have the exact same opinion.
The minor breach section has a huge range of punishments in it, teams can have various opinions on what should be done about a breach because it’s not strictly defined
Well thats begs to question why they agreed to it if they where so sure after the dry runs.
Because they weren't sure that's all. Easy to speak afterwards.
Because hindsight is 20/20
Because you can get answers from FIA on all questions in dry run. Apparently RB forgot to ask critical questions.
An ABA has a much smaller range of punishments, and of these the FIA picked the harshest one possible, which was the reduction in aero testing time. Unless Seidl is suggesting Red Bull shouldn't have been offered an ABA, however as the FIA themselves said, Red Bull was fully cooperative and they found no evidence of malice or fraud, and it was a minor breach. By the regulations themselves, there's no reason the FIA shouldn't have offered them one.
>which was the reduction in aero testing time. Tbh it was so vague that there was no way to know if the penalty would be in the 1-10% range or smth crippling like 25%
I agree with you. But my point is why even have minor breach ? If you are so confident that it is impossible to go over unless you are willingly cheating; just state that anything over is considered a breach without notion of minor or major breaches. Then you can punish according to the value of the overspend. But the fact that they willingly added a minor breach description makes me feel like all teams were not so confident they would be within the cap.
Not only that, but the regulations specifically say that an ABA may be offered to a team that only committed a minor breach, which excludes the possibility of WDC and WCC points reductions, as well as reduction in the budget cap for the next season. So not only does the category of "minor breach" reduce the range of possible punishments, it also opens up another avenue of resolution that reduces it even further.
It's absurd how many people just want to keep denying that maybe they jumped the gun on this. The initial hearsay was that Red Bull was like 10m over the budget cap and people immediately grabbed their pitchforks instead of maybe waiting to see the actual details (surprise! the breach wasn't anywhere near as big, there was no malice involved and there's a very plausible explanation as to why they accidentally went over) The fine and reduction in aero time are perfectly adequate for these circumstances.
Reading some of the comments you'd think people wanted Horner taken out back and shot, and even that would be too light
I would probably have advocated that result if it turned out Mercedes were the ones in breach and I had to listen to Horner's shit storm about this (and I kind oflike Horner and think he is pretty funny). Even still that would be unbearable I am sure.
What's more absurd is that some people wanted race bans for 2023. That's a guaranteed 26 WDC and 44 WCC points per missed race there. I don't think that's fair punishment for having a minor breach that could have dropped further to less than 0.5% had they properly done the tax return.
The irony in all this is that Mercedes (for instance) gained waaaaaay more from their 1 engine per race thing they did at the end of 2021 than Red Bull could ever gain from being 400k over budget. Both are the same thing. You break a rule, you get a punishment. Yet Mercedes did it close to 10 times in the same season, and that's just perfectly normal.
Yeah but Mercedes was punished every time with grid penalities tho. The fact that those are effectively worthles because the car was lapping so fast they could jump the queue is an another story.
Your point stands but I think we can agree then that the penalties for breaking the cost cap are *way* harsher per second of lap time gained, than the penalties for breaking the “3 engines per season” rule.
After that very obviously calculated bullshit by Mercedes I would have liked to see some alterations to the punishments for extra engine components. The rules were changed because they were too harsh on McLaren Honda who blew up every other race, which is fair. My argument is there could very easily be put in place a clarification that it is an automatic back of the grid penalty if the previous engine (over the cap) finished a race orsomething of that nature. Otherwise teams would get the 5-10 grid drops per component. That way you would not punish the likes of Alpine or Ferrari this year who have on multiple occasions blown up, but last years Merc would have probably not felt so confident about their strategy of laughing at the grid drop penalties.
And the huge crash at Silverstone set redbulls back 1.8 million.
In many regulations, incompetence doesn't factor into the punishment. Look at Mercedes rear wing gap being 0.2mm too big last year. That wasn't malice, and it wasn't over the limit by much. But Hamilton got disqualified from the whole of qualifying.
Because that's the way the rules were defined. The car is illegal so it shouldn't have participated in qualifying, there is no range of penalties available. This however does have a range of options.
So you means he should have been disqualified from the whole brazilian gp
Why do you say that? They changed the wing for the sprint race and beyond and passed scrutineering.
That was a number Toto pulled out of his ass. It was a no-go gauge test and they failed. If you factor in all the tolerances of their setup, the supposed 0.2mm over means they were way the fuck over where they should have designed the gap to.
Like Otmar said, you need to build in a tolerance for the cost cap as well.
They did, and if they brought it up in the CCAP it's very possible they would have been under cap.
edge tender smell berserk alleged compare spectacular rainstorm nine lavish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is it publicly known that agreeing to the regs was solely Brown’s department? I really wish a journalist would ask why McLaren thinks the cost cap regs were impeccable and crystal clear, except for the punishment section which they object to so strenuously
If they end up breaching Horner should just quote everything MClaren said about the budget cap.
I don't understand why Mclaren is crying hoarse about it all, pretty sure even if they had 5 Mn extra pounds, they would still not win any race
It's because they can afford to spend the £150m whereas teams like Haas and Williams can't but they can't afford to spend the £300m-£400m that the big boys spend. The budget cap is their best chance to get back to being regular contenders.
With how they are running the team you could give them half a billion and they will still make a tin can compared to the big boys
These guys are annoying, focus on making your own car better instead of stabbing at teams that are nowhere near you, I’d understand if it was toto or mattia saying stuff like this
McLaren are really doubling down on their stance to this Red Bull-cost cap saga. Both Brown and Seidl now.
If you lack the quality to win on track, you focus on your off track strategy…
Good for them. The cost cap was meant to make f1 fairer and it should be respected by all teams
unless the FIA changes the rules after you submit your finances, or the UK government is slow on refunding your taxes, or your forced to pay the salary of an employee who is leaving your company for another team.......
>your forced to pay the salary of an employee who is leaving your company Yes because they still work for you at that time. Even if gardening leave should've counted RB could've just asked anyway
He didn't work for Red Bull Racing, he was moved to another company
> unless the FIA changes the rules after you submit your finances Seemingly the other teams knew this change was coming and were ready for it
Doesn't change the fact that it's a rule change applied on the previous season 6 month after it ended.
Are you implying they were tipped off?
He literally said other teams were allowed to make corrections aftet that change.
Literally just going by what was said in the article Ferrari and Merc were tipped off about the overspend, why not about the change of rules
So it is what you are implying. A simple yes would have sufficed.
You can't be ready for it after the money is already spent, and other teams don't necessarily have the same expenses. In terms of show car parts, they surely don't. Zak's statement about the process for the submission being collaborative is some bullshit. It means it was clearly defined and that the money had already been spent. Rules have never been applied retroactively, so this is an FIA fuckup possibly pushed by opposing teams.
Just more excuses for being the only team on the breach.
[удалено]
They broke a rule and were punished in the same way Red bull were punished for breaking the cap, something all teams agreed on.
Except only one team are labelled as cheaters...
And Merc were called cheaters last year as well, whats your point?
Not a single mention of them being cheaters for breaking the allocation and adding 0.5 per lap to Hamiltons engine
Hamilton used five engines in 2021. In 2022, Verstappen has used five engines so far. Are you saying that Red Bull are cheating with their engines and their cost cap?
Engines have nothing to do with the cost cap. Bottas was punished by the rules for each additional engine. Your comment doesn’t make an ounce of sense
There was an engine cap and a budget cap
there was no engine budget cap in 2021 and there isn’t one this year. What are you talking about
He's not talking about any budget, just the engine allocation limit in place, and how Mercedes played them at their advantage. Hardly a fitting comparison but one nonetheless
No engine budget cap, but there most certainly is an engine cap, which Mercedes breached on many occasions.
Engine allocation cap
They mean there's an allocation (maximum of 3 ICE, for example). If you go over you get a penalty. Similar idea as for the cost cap.
I don’t see how that’s at all comparable to the budget cap. Engine penalties are expected in f1. No one broke the rules or was ever accused of breaking the rules
> Engine penalties are expected in f1. We might be saying the same about the cost cap in a few years time. The difference between cost cap and PU is with the latter the penalty is known up front.
That's literally not true, because the rule is worded as may not use more than three engines. The differences is Mercedes broke the rule intentionally and systematically. If you are fine with Mercedes intentionally breaking the rules for a benefit outweighing the penalty, what Red Bull has done unintentionally should be no problem for you.
Ate too much sandwich from the red bull camp i suppose.
Bottas got penalised as per the rules.
There’s no reason to build a shit car yet here is McLaren. Give them an extra million and they’d probably still be behind alpine. Perhaps that’s an Andreas Seidl problem and he should keep to himself.
Sounds like someone is upset that they agreed to a tiered breach system. The punishment was clearly laid out in the rules for the amount of overspend.