FIA Thread

[Big Tea]

https://the-race.com/formula-1/how-fias ... -loophole/
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How FIA’s trying to close an F1 team ‘side project’ loophole

By Mark Hughes

The FIA has issued a new technical directive to tackle potential grey areas around Formula 1 teams’ non-F1 engineering activities.

The newly-imposed TD45 comes into immediate effect and is backdated to January 1 of this year.

It is described by the FIA as both a technical directive and a cost cap admin clarification
which addresses the issue of non-F1 activities costs.

Many of the top teams have non-F1 engineering divisions – notably Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, Aston Martin and McLaren.

The new TD clarifies how the FIA will interpret the costs of any technology or IP created by these non-F1 groups which is subsequently used by the F1 team, and makes clear the value of any such instances will be included in the cost cap. This is an attempt to close a possible loophole in the cost cap regulations.

Is this just a tidying up of loose ends, or has someone been caught with their finger in the pie?

I do not see how a rule can be backdated?

[chrisc90]

Does seem odd it can be backdated. If a team was using IP by a side project, how do you assign the value of it? Would be very hard to do surely. What if a team has already thrown a tonne of resources into that project since 1st January and then FIA comes along and says that's worth £50million for example and throws the team over the cap not even half way through the season.

Side projects will continue. I mean take Red Bull for example. How many different teams, or other areas of extreme sports do they sponsor or have their branding attached to - absolutely loads. Stunts, boats, motorcross, rallying.

[Just_a_fan]

Does seem odd it can be backdated. If a team was using IP by a side project, how do you assign the value of it? Would be very hard to do surely. What if a team has already thrown a tonne of resources into that project since 1st January and then FIA comes along and says that's worth £50million for example and throws the team over the cap not even half way through the season.

Side projects will continue. I mean take Red Bull for example. How many different teams, or other areas of extreme sports do they sponsor or have their branding attached to - absolutely loads. Stunts, boats, motorcross, rallying.

Side projects are fine. What is not fine is using them to get around the cost cap. That's when a side project becomes cheating.

The FIA is right to crack down on it. The annoying thing is that they have done their usual half-arsed approach to it. The cost cap regs themselves should have had a section outlawing such moves - just thinking "oh, it's obviously implied in the idea of cost cap" doesn't cut it in a sport where the teams actively try to push every rule they can.

[chrisc90]

Does seem odd it can be backdated. If a team was using IP by a side project, how do you assign the value of it? Would be very hard to do surely. What if a team has already thrown a tonne of resources into that project since 1st January and then FIA comes along and says that's worth £50million for example and throws the team over the cap not even half way through the season.

Side projects will continue. I mean take Red Bull for example. How many different teams, or other areas of extreme sports do they sponsor or have their branding attached to - absolutely loads. Stunts, boats, motorcross, rallying.

Side projects are fine. What is not fine is using them to get around the cost cap. That's when a side project becomes cheating.

The FIA is right to crack down on it. The annoying thing is that they have done their usual half-arsed approach to it. The cost cap regs themselves should have had a section outlawing such moves - just thinking "oh, it's obviously implied in the idea of cost cap" doesn't cut it in a sport where the teams actively try to push every rule they can.

How do you draw the line though?

Its essentially the same as say Newey or Allinson working in their own companies designing stuff on say boats and then bringing them ideas to the table when they do 1 or 2 days a week in the F1 factory. How do you put a price on those ideas and knowledge that was gained outside of the F1 team.

Whats to stop a staff member from somewhere else creating a new design of carbon fibre thats stronger/lighter and is all round better for F1 carbon production? They work on the project, spending millions designing it, then drop back into the F1 team and use their knowledge to bring it into the F1 world for minimal cost, F1 team then protects it with IP and youve saved yourself £10million for example in the design stages and finding new materials that work better.

[Big Tea]

Does seem odd it can be backdated. If a team was using IP by a side project, how do you assign the value of it? Would be very hard to do surely. What if a team has already thrown a tonne of resources into that project since 1st January and then FIA comes along and says that's worth £50million for example and throws the team over the cap not even half way through the season.

Side projects will continue. I mean take Red Bull for example. How many different teams, or other areas of extreme sports do they sponsor or have their branding attached to - absolutely loads. Stunts, boats, motorcross, rallying.

Side projects are fine. What is not fine is using them to get around the cost cap. That's when a side project becomes cheating.

The FIA is right to crack down on it. The annoying thing is that they have done their usual half-arsed approach to it. The cost cap regs themselves should have had a section outlawing such moves - just thinking "oh, it's obviously implied in the idea of cost cap" doesn't cut it in a sport where the teams actively try to push every rule they can.

How do you draw the line though?

Its essentially the same as say Newey or Allinson working in their own companies designing stuff on say boats and then bringing them ideas to the table when they do 1 or 2 days a week in the F1 factory. How do you put a price on those ideas and knowledge that was gained outside of the F1 team.

Whats to stop a staff member from somewhere else creating a new design of carbon fibre thats stronger/lighter and is all round better for F1 carbon production? They work on the project, spending millions designing it, then drop back into the F1 team and use their knowledge to bring it into the F1 world for minimal cost, F1 team then protects it with IP and youve saved yourself £10million for example in the design stages and finding new materials that work better.

Yeh, where do you draw a line?
Is it as tight as reading a book on your own time or during the working day? A whole can of worms here.
It is obvious what the intention is, but how do they put in it law, then enforce it?
It would have to over lap several existing 'rules' too such as the mid season shut down, unpaid volunteer work etc, I see trouble ahead as long as it is not a cursory wave at the notion just to say 'we are watching you',

[AR3-GP]

Does seem odd it can be backdated. If a team was using IP by a side project, how do you assign the value of it? Would be very hard to do surely. What if a team has already thrown a tonne of resources into that project since 1st January and then FIA comes along and says that's worth £50million for example and throws the team over the cap not even half way through the season.

Side projects will continue. I mean take Red Bull for example. How many different teams, or other areas of extreme sports do they sponsor or have their branding attached to - absolutely loads. Stunts, boats, motorcross, rallying.

Side projects are fine. What is not fine is using them to get around the cost cap. That's when a side project becomes cheating.

Hiring employees from other teams is a way to get around the cost cap. You can hire an engineer with his head full of concepts which another team invested in, which he can regurgitate in a week, vs the months of time and millions of R&D cost it might take your team to develop the same idea organically.

Is this cheating? Did AMR cheat when they hired Blandin, Fallows, and the others?

Mercedes sent Adrian Newey a job offer. Would that be cheating? Adrian has been allowed to develop his own ideas using millions of dollars in RB resources. Should Merc be able to hire him away for the cost of his salary, so he can regurgitate an RB19 for them with a substantially reduced R&D cost?

[Tiny73]

?

Mercedes sent Adrian Newey a job offer. Would that be cheating? Adrian has been allowed to develop his own ideas using millions of dollars in RB resources. Should Merc be able to hire him away for the cost of his salary, so he can regurgitate an RB19 for them with a substantially reduced R&D cost?

You’re right, he should be chained to a desk at RB until such time they’ve sucked him dry of ideas and inspiration. Heaven forbid he seek a new challenge, how very dare he?

[AR3-GP]

?

Mercedes sent Adrian Newey a job offer. Would that be cheating? Adrian has been allowed to develop his own ideas using millions of dollars in RB resources. Should Merc be able to hire him away for the cost of his salary, so he can regurgitate an RB19 for them with a substantially reduced R&D cost?

You’re right, he should be chained to a desk at RB until such time they’ve sucked him dry of ideas and inspiration. Heaven forbid he seek a new challenge, how very dare he?

Adrian Newey is only being used as an example. Do you have any opinion of the rest of the post which is the much more interesting discussion point?

If F1's goal is to prevent teams from circumventing the cost cap, then hiring employees from rival teams would need to be policed. Whether that means Adrian Newey is chained to a desk at RB or not, it's a question that must be answered, if only to expose the inconvenient conclusions which is presents. This may just prove that the cost cap is a fool's errand.

As I pointed out in the original post, AMR bought tons of IP for pennies on the dollar by simply paying a salary to heavily embedded employees of rival teams. Why is this overlooked? Is this not a blatant circumvention of the cost cap? They've gained access to ideas and technology that they did not have to account for in their budget because it came by way of the minds of the people they hired. People like Blandin and Fellows may have spent millions in R&D at RB and Mercedes to develop methodology, aerodynamic understandings, etc, and could show up at AMR with the final results of that R&D in their heads to regurgitate for Lawrence Stroll. Do you think that's not what is being done and why Lawrence went after these people in the first place?

[Big Tea]

?

Mercedes sent Adrian Newey a job offer. Would that be cheating? Adrian has been allowed to develop his own ideas using millions of dollars in RB resources. Should Merc be able to hire him away for the cost of his salary, so he can regurgitate an RB19 for them with a substantially reduced R&D cost?

You’re right, he should be chained to a desk at RB until such time they’ve sucked him dry of ideas and inspiration. Heaven forbid he seek a new challenge, how very dare he?

But what if his name was not Adrian and he did not work for RBR but a freelance design company called itsnotcheatinggov which was sponsored by some large German company as pure research on aerodynamics?

He may have just by chance have been 'thinking about' how a drs flap affects straight line speed and spent 6 months studying it before becoming a Mer... erm I mean random German F1 team.

[vorticism]

Newey is the ghost in the machine. He is the Cthulu of F1, his divine shadow cast upon the paddock, his tendrils snaking out from a drafting board in Milton Keynes. All F1 cars of the past 14 years are essentially derivations of the RB5. Sanction come and go, penalties collect at the base of the ramparts. "Side projects?" a voice rumbles softly in the distance. "You are all my side project. You are living in it."

[Big Tea]

Newey is the ghost in the machine. He is the Cthulu of F1, his divine shadow cast upon the paddock, his tendrils snaking out from a drafting board in Milton Keynes. All F1 cars of the past 14 years are essentially derivations of the RB5. Sanction come and go, penalties collect at the base of the ramparts. "Side projects?" a voice rumbles softly in the distance. "You are all my side project. You are living in it."

https://sadgeezer.com/wp-content/upload ... 916112.jpg

I have little doubt he depends on input from many other people though. He is more a CPU than an oracle

[vorticism]

I have little doubt he depends on input from many other people though. He is more a CPU than an oracle

He is a practitioner of the black art of aeromancy, channeling ancestral knowledge from the archons. Computers are but wind up toys clinking around at the feet of the initiate. Pretenders to the throne scrawl upon paper with crayon seeking approval.

There was the amusing content in his video interview recently.

"How do you get a job at Red Bull, Newey?"

"Go to uni for a few years, get a degree in aeronautics, not mechanical."

"Is that what you did?"

"No, I just chatted up a team owner and started drawing."

[Big Tea]

I have little doubt he depends on input from many other people though. He is more a CPU than an oracle

He is a practitioner of the black art of aeromancy, channeling ancestral knowledge from the archons. Computers are but wind up toys clinking around at the feet of the initiate. Pretenders to the throne scrawl upon paper with crayon seeking approval.

There was the amusing content in his video interview recently.

"How do you get a job at Red Bull, Newey?"

"Go to uni for a few years, get a degree in aeronautics, not mechanical."

"Is that what you did?"

"No, I just chatted up a team owner and started drawing."

Those who can, DO

[AR3-GP]

I have little doubt he depends on input from many other people though. He is more a CPU than an oracle

He is a practitioner of the black art of aeromancy, channeling ancestral knowledge from the archons. Computers are but wind up toys clinking around at the feet of the initiate. Pretenders to the throne scrawl upon paper with crayon seeking approval.

There was the amusing content in his video interview recently.

"How do you get a job at Red Bull, Newey?"

"Go to uni for a few years, get a degree in aeronautics, not mechanical."

"Is that what you did?"

"No, I just chatted up a team owner and started drawing."

Those who can, DO

True.

[vorticism]

Those who can, DO

"Yes."