F1 2022 season - Michael Masi sacked

First topic message reminder :

Rumours suggesting Fernando Alonso's deal with Aston Martin could be up to 4 years long. 2 years guaranteed. Third year is driver side option and fourth year is team side option.
Alonso might never retire at this rate LOL

GSC wrote:Another banner day for the FIA

Who knew we had it so good under Masi? Can’t even begin to start with all the shambles today…

Congratulations to Max - easily the best this year. Hopefully Ferrari and Merc can put up a better showing next season

Unsurprisingly Ferrari decide not to appeal LeClerc’s time penalty

Seems like relations at Ferrari are crumbling...
Binotto having a meltdown over LeClerc’s 5 second penalty
LeClerc saying he deserved the penalty.
Binotto is a dead man walking...

AM charged with a procedural breach of the cost cap
RB charged with a procedural breach and minor overspend

Punishments to be announced some other time

Basically a non event. Financial penalties and nothing else.

Slightly off-topic, but talking about money: W-series don't have enough for any more races this season.

Yeah there was never really an answer to what comes next. Ended up as a bit of a gimmick series with not a great overall standard. Really needed a clear line to progress beyond it

Red Bull’s overspend was between $1-2m, basically £1m give or take I mentioned previously.
Red Bull considering appealing regardless how nominal the incoming fine is.

More on Pierre Gasly’s move to Renault.
The Frenchman will earn $15m for 2023 - his 2022 deal at Red Bull was $4-5m.
$15m is also the ‘official’ salary Renault paid Alonso - that’s not the actual salary. Alonso gets way more.
Red Bull ‘released’ Gasly after Renault paid a 10 figure sum.

de Vries joined Red Bull for free as he had a break clause if Mercedes couldn’t find him a seat

Red Bull must be laughing at how this worked out.

Stefano Domenicali says 24 races is the max capacity and that he can’t see further expansion.

Singapore is to make amendments to the track from turns 16-19 to try improve overtaking.

Adrian Newey’s salary is breach in Red Bull’s cost cap case. The top three non driver members of staffs salaries are exempt from the cost cap - for whatever reason - FIA deems Newey not employed by Red Bull Racing…

Does a lot outside of F1 iirc including the americas cup or whatever it is

Yeah something like that - FIA says Newey is employed by Red Bull but not Red Bull Racing...
Seems like RBR will appeal

With the cost caps teams wanted proper checks that other teams weren't pulling a fast one. I know that driver salaries are not included but assumed all non-driver staff were included.

Only the top 3 salaries

Haas says Daniel Ricciardo would get the seat for 2023, but that the Australian must make the first move. Danny Ric hasn’t shown the willingness so far to join Haas...

Horner
Newey
Two others that I can’t remember are Red Bull Racing’s highest earners.

Marko as consultant and boss of the Red Bull driver academy isn’t on the books either - 100% within the rules.

Daniel Ricciardo snubs Haas drive for 2023.

Jeff Navarro wrote:Daniel Ricciardo snubs Haas drive for 2023.

Performance or money? I am sure he said he had options to drive in other series but that there was nothing like driving in F1 and he felt if he left there would be no way back (unlike for Alonso).

Can’t be money related I’d imagine, McLaren paid him close to $10m to sack him.
I’m assuming he doesn’t see any point dropping down to Haas. And I’m fairly certain he snubbed Williams as well.

Also more on the Singapore track modifications, this is only for 2023. They are renovating the area between turns 16-19.

As such the 2023 layout will mean that average lap time will be 1.27 rather than the usual 1.47

Charles LeClerc takes another ICE this weekend. 5 place grid pen.

Jeff Navarro wrote:Charles LeClerc takes another ICE this weekend. 5 place grid pen.

Sainz
Perez
Zhou

Join the grid pen party

Red Bull maintains they didn’t breach the cost cap - it has been confirmed they failed to claim a tax rebate worth $1.4m and a few staff based payments regarding sick pay and canteen free food.

if they broke the cost cap in spirit then they should be penalised if they broke the cost cap becuase of some mishap with the paperwork, eg failing to claim a claimable rebate, then as long as that claim is valid, then I don't think they should be penalised - put it down to first year teething issues with the cap system.

If they genuinely missed the deadline for the rebate, fine no sporting penalty imo.
But they should still receive a fine. Being sloppy still deserves punishment.

They've clearly been working hard to spin it (the first thing to get out was the catering, as if it was all in cups of tea), but if they went over they ultimately spent too much on the car. They're the only team that went over, so everyone else was too conservative and/or RB flew too close to the sun. Limiting their development wouldn't affect the past, would set the tone as a deterrent, and build some extra intrigue for next season.

The RB18 is so good and so dominant, losing 5% of R&D for 2023 wouldn’t make any difference.
That car has performance still hidden away, as in Red Bull aren’t showing their full potential.

I've heard so much nonsense that I'm just going to wait for the official explanation

Jeff Navarro wrote:The RB18 is so good and so dominant, losing 5% of R&D for 2023 wouldn’t make any difference.

It might end up being a slap on the wrist, but the key thing is that it wouldn't immediately look like one.

At the end of the day, a financial penalty is irrelevant. Red Bull can afford any financial penalties.
McLaren has been begging for Red Bull to be excluded from the 2022 WCC. Laughable suggestion.

I will wait for details.

But a fine of double their overspend, their overspend deducted from next year's cap, and an equivalent amount distributed to all teams as additional cap seems reasonable.

Plus a suspended points penalty for an overspend in the next 5 years

Sargeant gets the Williams drive if he gets enough points for a super licence in the f2 finale

FIA’s offer to Red Bull was 25% reduction in wind tunnel time for 2023. As well as a fine.
280 hours is what the constructors champions get the following year -so Red Bull would be down to 210 hours
The offer was rejected.

Dietrich Mateschitz has died. RIP

Yet another qualifying session where all the suspense and excitement is sucked out by the engine penalties. Really hope they revamp this rule before next season.

Not sure what the alternative is. If there's no penalty for engine parts the top teams will just do what Hamilton did in brazil

Jeff Navarro wrote:Dietrich Mateschitz has died. RIP

Wonder what the impact will be in terms of Red Bull sports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Red_Bull_sports_teams

No change in Red Bull as of now - Mateschitz’s son is the sole heir

GSC wrote:Not sure what the alternative is. If there's no penalty for engine parts the top teams will just do what Hamilton did in brazil

Engine penalties should mean the car taking them shouldn’t earn any WCC points for that race.

FIA and Red Bull has reached an agreement over the cost cap breach. Announcement is withheld due to Mateschitz’s death.

I always thought it highly unusual for an energy drinks company to be such a huge investor in sports - and to have such a successful impact especially in motor-racing. The vision must have been from Mateschitz. There are lots of other businesses out there but "Red Bull" seem to have been fairly unique.

Max gets Sainz off the line and it gets worse as he's tagged by Russell at T1. 5 seconds for Russell seems harsh to me, Sainz cut back across the racing line

Tyre wear too harsh for Mercedes to really affect Max in any way at first stops. Perez takes over effective P3 after George's penalty.

Bottas brings out the safety car and LeClerc back into the race

George following a Ferrari into T1, what can go wrong

Stroll decides to extend the SC by hitting his future teammate

Not entirely sure why LeClerc is allowed to overtake off the track but here we are

Slow stop for Verstappen and he's jumped by Lewis and Charles.

Lewis now has a gap but takes hards to the end while the other two take mediums