[RahulNagaraj]

Formula1's governing authority, the FIA, released a statement on Monday confirming that all teams except Red Bull, Aston Martin & Williams have received their compliance certificates. The Williams F1 team's breach was in reference to the late submission of files last year, for which they have already been fined.

Aston Martin was found to have been guilty of a procedural breach. There was no overspending, as the review indicates, and the "procedural breach" was said to be related to a number of administrative accounting protocols.



However, Red Bull is said to have been found guilty of not only a procedural breach but a minor cost cap breach as well. The FIA's statement comes despite Red Bull's confident belief that their financial submission was comfortably under the cost cap limit set for the 2021 season.

FIA, however, is yet to announce how they would go about handling the breaches of Aston Martin & Red Bull.

The regulations, though, lay out a wide range of options as punishment. As per these regulations, penalties for a minor breach (less than 5% overspend) include a public reprimand, deduction in constructor's or driver's championship points, exclusion from events, limitations on aero testing or a fine amount.

Source: Motorsport.com

Link to Team-BHP news

[Scarlet_Rider]

Ideally when the FIA makes rules on budget caps, they should also have a mechanism in place to monitor the spending of each team on a real time or week by week basis. Can't imagine the scenario where the last year's world championship changes hands almost 10+ months down the line!

[Sidjohri]

Online grapevine suggests that the minor breach should not have too much impact on the outcome of the previous / ongoing championship. Let's hope this is true - races / should be won on track and not in meeting rooms/pseudo courts. Any discrepancies should be dealt with in real-time and penalties handed on the spot.

[rahulcmoulee]

Originally Posted by Sidjohri

Online grapevine suggests that the minor breach should not have too much impact on the outcome of the previous / ongoing championship. Let's hope this is true - races / should be won on track and not in meeting rooms/pseudo courts. Any discrepancies should be dealt with in real-time and penalties handed on the spot.

If this is the case then no team will respect the budget cap, thus making it a pointless rule. A minor breach is considered to be upto 5% more than the allowed budget which is 7.25 million dollars. That much money would be enough for a team like Mercedes/Ferrari to make their car 1 second a lap faster.

If these sort of things go unpunished it will just make the 9 other teams who managed to follow the rules look silly for doing so. A strict precedent needs to be set for breaking financial regulations because at the end of the day, it is cheating.

Yes these things should be monitored real time but the penalty should be the same irrespective of whether the offense is found on the spot or 10 months later because at the end of the day the rule break is the same.

[attinder]

Originally Posted by rahulcmoulee

If this is the case then no team will respect the budget cap, thus making it a pointless rule. A minor breach is considered to be upto 5% more than the allowed budget which is 7.25 million dollars. That much money would be enough for a team like Mercedes/Ferrari to make their car 1 second a lap faster.
.

There could be x number of technical or unforseen factors to go above budget cap. And there should be appropriate penalties.
Just like going above engine allocations.

1 second for 7 million is rubbish.

[AZT]

I think Red Bull has tried to muddy the water by selectively leaking wrong information. The FIA is known for back room deals so not expecting much info to come out. To prevent other teams from going over by $2m next year, there will be some harsh penalties laid out.

Fans expect either a fine (which makes the budget cap useless) or a cut in wind tunnel time. Realistically there will not be a points deduction,if teams figure there is a 10 point reduction for every $2m they can just build a rocket ship like RBR this year and get so ahead of the competition that any penalty is fine.

Btw RBR, Ferrari, and Sauber all share the same auditor EY. The whole accounting "misunderstanding" for catering services is a meme at this point.

[Omkar]

It's important to understand that this is the first year of application of Financial Regulations. There was a lot of uncertainty and objections regarding the cost cap for a long time. Now since all that has been sorted out and cost cap is here to stay, I hope there would be no threshold next year onwards.

One of the team principals had brought up this issue regarding the threshold. If anything under 5% is 'Minor Overspend', then everyone would limit at 4.9% and get away with a financial penalty. F1 is all about exploiting the most out of everything. Finding loopholes in technical directives or financial directives is never going to stop.

And no, I don't think Max will be stripped of the title. This is a case of minor overspend breach (FIA words), not as serious as Renault Crashgate or McLaren Spygate - in both cases the teams were penalised and not the drivers.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by attinder

There could be x number of technical or unforseen factors to go above budget cap. And there should be appropriate penalties.
Just like going above engine allocations.

1 second for 7 million is rubbish.

1 second for 7 million may not be rubbish. Nobody can quantify the exact amount of gain but read Toto's statement below. 7 million is double of what Merc spent on parts brought on during the last season.

And just to be clear - I am not a Lewis or Merc fan and i was the extremely happy with the outcome of last year'ss championship. But if a line was crossed and crossing it makes a difference then it needs to be dealt with strictly. If it is not then this cost cap is a laugh.

Statement

One of them is Mercedes chief Wolff –and he has dismissed claims that any breach made was a "minor" one, as even a small extra amount of cash spent could have made the difference. "Is it a so-called minor breach, because I think the word is probably not correct?" the Austrian questioned.

"If you're spending five million more, and you're still in the minor breach, it still has a big impact on the championship. To give you an idea, we obviously monitor closely which parts are being brought to the track from the top teams every single race – for the 2021 season and the 2022 season.

"We can see that there are two top teams that are just about the same and there is another team that spends more.

We know exactly that we're spending – three and a half million a year in parts that we bring to the car. So then you can see what difference it makes to spend another $500,000. It would be a difference."

Source

[Cyborg]

The FIA has to take a very firm stand and make an example by deducting Drivers and Constructors points to teach them a proper lesson. Anything less like only a fine or reprimand will be useless because then every team will want to take a chance, spend more, pay a fine or take a reprimand and enjoy the benefits of spending more.

These teams have to be penalised where it really hurts, deducting Drivers, Constructors points and a hefty fine, perhaps an equal amount to what they have spent above the budget cap is the way to go.

Everyone’s eyes will be on the FIA’s decision and a precedent will be set for the future. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Cheers

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

The FIA has to take a very firm stand and make an example by deducting Drivers and Constructors points to teach them a proper lesson. Anything less like only a fine or reprimand will be useless because then every team will want to take a chance, spend more, pay a fine or take a reprimand and enjoy the benefits of spending more.

These teams have to be penalised where it really hurts, deducting Drivers, Constructors points and a hefty fine, perhaps an equal amount to what they have spent above the budget cap is the way to go.

Everyone’s eyes will be on the FIA’s decision and a precedent will be set for the future. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Cheers

I agree this is time for the sport/FIA to set an example and make sure other teams don't get weird ideas for the coming seasons or this season. As the driver championship is already decided and constructors almost, Ferrari and Merc can think of spending some extra bucks this year to try parts for next year as they have nothing to loose.

[GTO]

Who audits whether an F1 Team has managed to stay within the cost cap or not? IMHO, the only real confirmation can come from a neutral 3rd-party. The best solution will be hiring any of the Big 4 auditors (e.g. PWC, Deloitte) with the billing taken care of by F1 owners, so there is no conflict of interest when auditing the teams.

[aim120]

Last year Mercedes barely got any updates after silverstone.

Redbull on the other hand brought updates right till the last leg of the championship.

[Cyborg]

Originally Posted by GTO

Who audits whether an F1 Team has managed to stay within the cost cap or not? IMHO, the only real confirmation can come from a neutral 3rd-party. The best solution will be hiring any of the Big 4 auditors (e.g. PWC, Deloitte) with the billing taken care of by F1 owners, so there is no conflict of interest when auditing the teams.

Not necessarily GTO, this is done by the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel which is overseen by the FIA. FIA credentials are highly respected, impeccable, above and beyond any integrity issues.





The article below gives further details.

https://www.fia.com/news/fia-complet...al-regulations

Cheers

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by aim120

Last year Mercedes barely got any updates after silverstone.

No way! The pace difference between RB and Merc was great during Saudi and Abu Dhabi GPs. The Mercs definitely made some changes for sure.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

No way! The pace difference between RB and Merc was great during Saudi and Abu Dhabi GPs. The Mercs definitely made some changes for sure.

The only thing Mercedes did was run the engines at uprated power but at the cost of reliability.