FIA place Championship frontrunners Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari under strict scrutiny in suspicion of playing the cost cap rules
FIA have introduced some new regulations to prevent teams misusing inventory and man power from their operations in non-F1 fields.
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In order to close an error in the cost cap laws surrounding employment of staff members and special project divisions, the FIA have published a crucial technical directive addressing the teams participating in Formula 1. The majority of them are also working on other sports projects, such as motorcycle-racing, America’s Cup yachts, and other formats. Senior engineers have historically been employed by F1 teams to work in distinct divisions on technological initiatives, allowing them to transfer their skills from racing to other businesses.
Top teams like Mercedes and Red Bull have ‘applied’ divisions under their businesses, working on a range of projects including automobiles and watercraft. James Allison, working for Mercedes, took up a project involving the America’s Cup boat for INEOS Britannia. Then, he recently returned to his position as Chief Technical Director with Mercedes’ F1 team. On the other hand, while Ferrari have the winning vehicle in the most recent 24 Hours of Le Mans, Red Bull have made investments in the NASCAR series.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the FIA are concerned that some F1 teams are leveraging their non-F1 sections in order to discover minor loopholes so that they can gain some advantages without violating cost-cap laws. Thus, the four top F1 teams in the Constructors’ Championship are reportedly now under the FIA’s watchful eye with the governing body of Formula One issuing a new technical directive to more strictly enforce cost ceiling restrictions.
FIA on its way to end the loophole which might have helped teams to go around the cost cap
To try to tackle the loophole in the FIA’s regulations involving the cost cap ceiling which came into the picture in 2021, the new technical directive, known as TD45, has been introduced. The new guideline guarantee that any “Intellectual Property” implemented from special initiatives of the F1 participant teams from outside of the motorsports franchise would be accounted for as a part of their expenditure under the cost cap, even though the FIA has no authority to impose regulations on teams managing other athletic divisions.
Otmar Szafnauer, the principal of the Alpine Team, had previously issued warnings about top teams exploiting loopholes to make cost limitations useless. “It seems like more and more teams are looking at their well remunerated employees that way for cost cap reasons,” he had previously told the media.
According to some sources, the FIA have already sent requests for explanations to Aston Martin, Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes over the information they have obtained from non-F1 ventures, asking them to fill a questionnaire with over 100 questions. Now, it is to be seen if, just a year after paying a multi-million-dollar worth of penalty for breaching the cost cap, Red Bull are back in FIA’s bad books with another punishment reserved for them.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)