F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Yeah that's utter nonsense, by all accounts, even if they were over it's by less than the 5% that's specifically called out in the rules as a "minor breach" that will result in a reprimand or fine. They're not the only team over either.

Given how much costs they incurred as a direct result of their cars being taken out and obliterated by Mercedes drivers during the championship, if there was a further disproportionately severe punishment for the cost of doing repairs then that basically further legitimises the tactic of taking out your rival when you can't beat them in a straight fair fight.

Ugh utterly dreadful news. Sky are such parasites on sport in general

Toto says its red bull in breach according to interview on sky and claims its serious. Went on about Merc making 40 people redundant etc

Problem with it is Hamilton gets paid $40m a year.

Cost cap is pointless unless it includes everyone

It kinda makes a mockery of the cost cap but also kinda makes sense. Lots of things are non competitive but still cost cost a fortune, like transport, catering, running a factory. If the cost cap only included the things then there wouldn't be any diffrrbetween the teams. The fact that drivers and designers are not included in the cap means you can still get some teams which have some key people but are run more efficiently than others and that makes the difference.

I think they're allowed 5 key people excluded from the cost cap. So that's your drivers, team principal, chief designer and another top person. Those 5 people can make a difference and I think that's fine.

Merc employed 1500 people which was 2 or 3 times as many as most other teams. Toto whinging about having to make staff redundant but other teams went through that about 2 years ago.

The engines aren't part of the cap from what I can see, so teams can just transfer people to engine development companies so they are off the cap.

Cap would be better served being a total cap on everything.

After the fiasco of Abu Dhabi after one of the greatest seasons ever, the FIA wouldn't want to just overturn the results in this fashion, it would only make the credibility ten times worse. A fine to the amount of the overspend plus a bit more would be my preferred punishment.

I don’t mind when they’re being an arse defending their own team but Toto pushing for massive punishment before anything has actually been published is fairly low. And of course he’s being enabled by Sky. As much as they’re a world feed they’re clearly a British channel first which can be really grating.

To be fair, there isn't a championship fight to talk about instead. This story was always going to get disproportionate coverage

That might be how the narrative will go. I'd just assumenits actually very hard to prove a breach so I doubt much will come of it. I wouldn't jump straight to a conspiracy.

Where's the thread's resident red bull apologist?

Good to see Steve Jones, Billy Monger and Mark Webber all have commen sense and agree that the sprint races are just a silly gimmic and so do the majority of fans. Good to know.

That narrative isn't any better. So some people will think it's an FIA cover up, and other people like yourself will say the only reason Red Bull weren't caught were because it's hard to prove.

Toto Wolff knows exactly what he's doing with this. Tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough and the truth will cease to matter. You don't need a single shred of evidence, enough suspicion has been cast.

I think this is why the FIA have felt the need to come out so strongly with a press release to say that these rumours are completely unsubstantiated and why Red Bull are going so far as to talk about suing Wolff for defamation. The truth matters, and when you've got F1 media dominated by Sky F1 who have a complete disregard for facts in their coverage, sometimes you have to go further. They've dealt with enough completely unjustified slander throughout last season from Mercedes PR machine and the British media and even though it's all completely divorced from reality I'm sure it must impact their sponsor relations for example.

I'm amazed Toto's continued pettyness has been allowed continue by Källenius.

Its embarassing for Mercedes.

How about waiting until the FIA actually publish the results instead of sticking Toto in front of a camera and asking him what should happen to Red Bull before we actually know anything?

If RB have exceeded the limit, then yeah, let’s see how they exceeded it and what their punishment is, and I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. Having a rival pontificate on the punishment as if he has the RB figures himself is a bit suspect.

Ah, you can't take either Toto or Christian's word for it just because they appear emphatic or confident. Thats not really evidence one way or the other. We don't have any real evidence to make a judgement. The only people who will see the evidence are the FIA's auditors.

Making a judgement without real evidence is silly. It's not our job to reach a judgement. I'll just wait and see what the investigation concludes.