182 replies to this topic

[pdac]

So they want to ban development for this, next and next year AND postpone new rules until 2023. Who’s coming up with this, Mercedes?

 

Horner thinks it's essential. Last time I looked, he didn't work for Mercedes.

[Risil]

Bit of a blow for Liberty's strategy to remake Grand Prix racing, isn't it? Makes the time F1 wasted in the latter end of the CVC/Bernie ownership look even more costly.

 

On the other hand, it'll smooth the passage of the budget cap as everyone sees the value of saving £££ right now.

[Trust]

It's pathetic if they postpone this rules to 2023. Give those titles to Lewis upfront without even driving it. I'm with JHSingo on this.

 

I understand one year delay, but more is silly.

[pdac]

It's pathetic if they postpone this rules to 2023. Give those titles to Lewis upfront without even driving it. I'm with JHSingo on this.

 

I understand one year delay, but more is silly.

 

It's essential that they postpone the rules - unless you have a few hundred million for each team that you wish to send to them soon.

[Alburaq]

It's essential that they postpone the rules - unless you have a few hundred million for each team that you wish to send to them soon.

 

Nope, Horner thinks it's essential (it's essential for Red Bull mainly). Postponing 2022 now makes no sense. It's would be an over-reaction. It's way too early, we dont know what will happen.and we still have time to see how the situation will evolve and react accordingly.

Edited by Alburaq, 01 April 2020 - 12:34.

[pdac]

Nope, Horner thinks it's essential (it's essential for Red Bull mainly). Postponing 2022 now makes no sense. It's would be an over-reaction. It's way too early, we dont know what will happen.and we still have time to see how the situation will evolve and react accordingly.

 

So why are ALL of the teams in favour of this?? Are you blind to the financial crisis that they are in?

[Marklar]

Nope, Horner thinks it's essential (it's essential for Red Bull mainly). Postponing 2022 now makes no sense. It's would be an over-reaction. It's way too early, we dont know what will happen.and we still have time to see how the situation will evolve and react accordingly.

Postponing now to 2023 is premature still, just like cancelling the whole season is premature yet (even if both things have a reasonably high chance to happen). They've basically freezed the development of the new cars till february 2021, so they have time till the end of the year to make a decision about 2023. However postponing to 2022 had to happen now. This year was supposed to be the highest spending year in F1 history, it would have been catastrophic is they hadnt done anything. and just waited to see what happens. Everyone who knows a tiny bit about how economics work knows how much damage this crisis has minimum caused, the question is how much worse it will still get.

Btw, your first bit makes little sense: Red Bull should be if anything the team with the least interest (beside Ferrari maybe) to postpone rules, since they have the financial resources probably to somehow survive and since they are still not certain whether they actually caught up with Mercedes over the winter. The fact that they think that it's needed speaks volumes, but some people are just blind.
 

Edited by Marklar, 01 April 2020 - 12:54.

[Marklar]

I’m doing ok with No F1 so far.... maybe this is how F1 will end, with a whimper. A victim of COVID-19

Why not just cancel 2020 and give the teams this year to develop to the new regs without the worry of racing. Make the call now... their hand is likely to be forced later this year anyway.

Racing Point or whatever this years name was gonna be, must be absolutely raging if their design trick never ends up hitting the track.

They spend all the money on the 2020 car and wont even get any sponsoring/TV money/whatever for this and it basically will get down with zero return on investment too!

I sometimes wonder if you guys even think about what you are proposing.

[Alburaq]

I'm not talking about the 2021 to 2022 postponement. That one makes sense. Unlike the to-2023 one. 

All teams agree to this? I dont think so. Only Horner is advocating for the 2023 postponement AFAIK 

Edited by Alburaq, 01 April 2020 - 13:04.

[ARTGP]

Well, if regs go back to 2023, it certainly makes for a spicy 2024 drivers market  .

Edited by ARTGP, 01 April 2020 - 13:13.

[pdac]

I'm not talking about the 2021 to 2022 postponement. That one makes sense. Unlike the to-2023 one. 

All teams agree to this? I dont think so. Only Horner is advocating for the 2023 postponement AFAIK 

 

The quote from Horner on this was:

There seems to be reasonable agreement but it needs ratifying by the FIA to push back those development costs into 2022 for introduction in the '23 season.

 

 

Of course, it's possible he was talking about "reasonable agreement" between himself and himself. But I read that more like several (if not all) teams are in agreement.

[ARTGP]

Postponing now to 2023 is premature still, just like cancelling the whole season is premature yet (even if both things have a reasonably high chance to happen). They've basically freezed the development of the new cars till february 2021, so they have time till the end of the year to make a decision about 2023. However postponing to 2022 had to happen now. This year was supposed to be the highest spending year in F1 history, it would have been catastrophic is they hadnt done anything. and just waited to see what happens. Everyone who knows a tiny bit about how economics work knows how much damage this crisis has minimum caused, the question is how much worse it will still get.

Btw, your first bit makes little sense: Red Bull should be if anything the team with the least interest (beside Ferrari maybe) to postpone rules, since they have the financial resources probably to somehow survive and since they are still not certain whether they actually caught up with Mercedes over the winter. The fact that they think that it's needed speaks volumes, but some people are just blind.
 

 

 

Everyone has ulterior motives. One could argue that Red Bull think they have a great opportunity in the current ruleset to give Max and Honda 2 championships, whereas next gen cars bring a lot of uncertainty.  That's just speculation, but you never can know what's really going on because as you say (and Marko himself said it too), Red Bull do have the finances to push through this difficult time. One could argue that Renault would like to delay the rules so they can spend the next 2 years winding down the team or finding a buyer while collecting as much prize money as they can before a pullout at the end of 2021.  "Restarting" 2022 development next February will be a critical juncture for many teams and I suspect 1 or 2 teams won't be restarting that development ahead of a pullout.  There's a million and one backroom agendas. Everyone has been guilty of witholding information. According to Toto and Binotto, nobody was burning oil, and nobody was exceeding fuel flow limits  .

Edited by ARTGP, 01 April 2020 - 15:23.

[THEWALL]

Horner thinks it's essential. Last time I looked, he didn't work for Mercedes.

Rhetorical...

[Marklar]

Small teams want a 100 m budget cap that also includes things like driver salaries. Ferrari & Red Bull think that this is too extreme. Red Bull/Mercedes offered a 150 m cap, and Red Bull only under the condition of postponing the rule changes to 2023. However there are indications that Daimler (and Renault) wouldnt mind to save even more money. Ferrari is against a knee jerk reaction, reducing it to 150 m wont help the small teams anyway since they wont spend this much anyway: they prefer to just put some more cost saving measures in, like to go ahead with the plan to not allow development parts during a race weeķend or to remove the exceptions (e.g. driver salaries) from the cost cap. Discussion to take place on monday https://www.auto-mot...100-mio-dollar/

[SonGoku]

I didn't know F1 was an American sport like NBA and NFL, and even there the main players aren't very happy with the salary cap.

[MikeV1987]

Makes sense as no driver is worth 2-3 mil per race.

[Kalmake]

Smaller teams don't really pay for drivers anyway as is. Easy for them to demand a cap.

 

I'm not sure it would be a good thing anyway. It would put another incentive on having only one star driver per top team.

[Sterzo]

Well, if regs go back to 2023, it certainly makes for a spicy 2024 drivers market  .

Should we start a 2024 Silly Season thread?

[Marklar]

Smaller teams don't really pay for drivers anyway as is. Easy for them to demand a cap.

 

I'm not sure it would be a good thing anyway. It would put another incentive on having only one star driver per top team.

As mentioned before top teams would probably then just pay their drivers more over the parent company as ambassadors or make one of their big sponsors the personal sponsors of their drivers (e.g. Malboro for Vettel, Petronas for Hamilton) or something to circumvent that rule. The driver salaries can stay easily excluded IMO, especially since the smaller teams dont pay much anyway.

[ARTGP]

I didn't know F1 was an American sport like NBA and NFL, and even there the main players aren't very happy with the salary cap.

 

 

These F1 guys can get multi-million endorsements outside of the team salaries. It's very easy to side step this salary cap.  Mercedes can have Petronas pay Lewis's salary through an "endorsement".  There is no salary cap on external endorsements, So maybe Lewis post a picture of a Petronas Syntium bottle in exchange for 40 million euro  .

[ARTGP]

As mentioned before top teams would probably then just pay their drivers more over the parent company as ambassadors or make one of their big sponsors the personal sponsors of their drivers (e.g. Malboro for Vettel, Petronas for Hamilton) or something to circumvent that rule. The driver salaries can stay easily excluded IMO, especially since the smaller teams dont pay much anyway.

 

 

Call a spade a spade why don't ya 

[pdac]

As mentioned before top teams would probably then just pay their drivers more over the parent company as ambassadors or make one of their big sponsors the personal sponsors of their drivers (e.g. Malboro for Vettel, Petronas for Hamilton) or something to circumvent that rule. The driver salaries can stay easily excluded IMO, especially since the smaller teams dont pay much anyway.

 

Maybe it's more of a principle thing. If they want to pay drivers that way, then the parent organisations will have to adjust their accounting and budgeting accordingly. Also, they could always close down those avenues in the future, if they really wanted to.

[pdac]

Small teams want a 100 m budget cap that also includes things like driver salaries. Ferrari & Red Bull think that this is too extreme. Red Bull/Mercedes offered a 150 m cap, and Red Bull only under the condition of postponing the rule changes to 2023. However there are indications that Daimler (and Renault) wouldnt mind to save even more money. Ferrari is against a knee jerk reaction, reducing it to 150 m wont help the small teams anyway since they wont spend this much anyway: they prefer to just put some more cost saving measures in, like to go ahead with the plan to not allow development parts during a race weeķend or to remove the exceptions (e.g. driver salaries) from the cost cap. Discussion to take place on monday https://www.auto-mot...100-mio-dollar/

 

As expected, the covid-19 crisis is going to force financial changes onto F1 much faster that it would have happened otherwise. F1 will be very different going forward from now.

[Marklar]

Call a spade a spade why don't ya 

 

 

Oops   

Anyway, Autobild reports that Wolff wants to make sponsors pay for driver salaries. In this particular case Monster is apparently ready to increase their investment so much that they would take over Hamilton's salary.

Rest of the article is more or less the same like the AMuS piece, except that they say that Ferrari is willing to go down to 150 m under the conditions mentioned earlier.

The artiicle also mentions that since the current cars are more expensive to run than the ones planned for the rule changes (due to spec parts) it will be very hard for the top teams to stay in the cost cap, they might have to release staff in this case, hence why they would like to freeze the development of certain parts.

https://f1-insider.c...-dollar-grenze/
 

[ARTGP]

Oops   

Anyway, Autobild reports that Wolff wants to make sponsors pay for driver salaries. In this particular case Monster is apparently ready to increase their investment so much that they would take over Hamilton's salary.

Rest of the article is more or less the same like the AMuS piece, except that they say that Ferrari is willing to go down to 150 m under the conditions mentioned earlier.

The artiicle also mentions that since the current cars are more expensive to run than the ones planned for the rule changes (due to spec parts) it will be very hard for the top teams to stay in the cost cap, they might have to release staff in this case, hence why they would like to freeze the development of certain parts.

https://f1-insider.c...-dollar-grenze/
 

 

 

I would imagine this is a special circumstance in that Monster wants to take Red Bull's lunch money.

[Marklar]

Teams had already agreed to reduce the original $175m (£142m) cap in 2021 to $150m (£122m) as a result of financial problems caused for F1 by coronavirus.
But at the meeting, the top three teams pushed back on a proposal to reduce the cap further to $125m (£102m).

The major rules change for 2021 which seeks to introduce cars that will create closer, more competitive racing was delayed last month by a year to 2022 to reduce costs.
Red Bull had been keen for that to be delayed by a further year to 2023 but FIA president Todt was adamant that should not happen.It was agreed that the matter would be discussed again - but not until the summer, as it was not an urgent topic in the context of costs that need to be cut right now to assist teams with loss of income.

F1 bosses are now looking seriously at the option of holding races behind closed doors as a way to get the season going before social distancing restrictions are lifted.
 
It is hoped that the actions of societies across Europe will lead to the coronavirus situation to improve sufficiently for a number of closed-door events to be held starting in July or August, perhaps kicking off with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, which has been singled out as a workable starting venue as seven of the 10 teams are based in this country.

https://www.bbc.com/...rmula1/52186477

[pdac]

https://www.bbc.com/...rmula1/52186477

 

It is hoped that the actions of societies across Europe will lead to the coronavirus situation to improve sufficiently for a number of closed-door events to be held starting in July or August

 

I'll believe that when I see it.

 

It all sounds like they just don't get it. The two-tier budget cap seems like a committee trying to get something everyone will agree to rather than getting something that produces the intended results.

Edited by pdac, 06 April 2020 - 21:33.

[ARTGP]

On the other side of things, a 100 million budget cap will ensure that teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull abuse the hell out of their B-teams to increase the amount of money they can spend.  

[SonGoku]

The insiders really don't know a lot about Mercedes, then they predict they want to save as much money as possible and now they are against doing that...

[Mohican]

Have you considered possibility that Mercedes want to include driver salaries in cost cap because they are fed up with paying Hamilton gazillions, but want somebody else to take the heat for reducing his pay ?

[ARTGP]

The insiders really don't know a lot about Mercedes, then they predict they want to save as much money as possible and now they are against doing that...

 

 

 

No one was wrong. Mercedes are saving money....Their budget is currently in the neighborhood of 400-500 million. And it will now be less than half of that.  They are now fussing over 125 million or 150 million. You can hardly argue Mercedes is against saving money...They are known along with Renault to want out of the sport if the numbers aren't right.  The issue now is like what was mentioned earlier

 

1) Mercedes/Ferrari have over 1000 employees. There must be work for them to be paid and you have to think with a Cap now half of what it once was, that there just won't be work for some people and they get let go.

 

2) Mercedes/Ferrari/RB do gearbox, suspension, for other teams.  The other teams can just focus on aero...it's a bit of a disadvantage...but in my opinion this last bit is some shrewd politics...It's not like some teams weren't playing musical chairs with the employees swapping from B-team to A-team with no gardening leave  .

Edited by ARTGP, 07 April 2020 - 20:14.

[Tiakumosan]

Hm, does this mean we'll have 3 years of running with 19's tyres?

[cjm321190]

I think the point about personell is a bit misleading. Williams have 700 employees on their current 130-150mil spend. So the big teams will not have to get rid of many people. Some of those are non engineers anyways so maybe reduced.

Also if the cap is a success and we get 13 teams again then those people will still have job opportunities.

Nowhere in life does it say you are guaranteed a job for life. A bit harsh maybe but the best will survive.