Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

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AmericanChopper

But that’s not a solution for balancing the concerns of the two competitions. The new regs are going to bring F1 closer to being a spec series than it’s ever been before.

The budget cap is just a little over the current Haas budget. Personally I don’t find the prospect of watching a race with 10 Haas level teams in it to be a particularly compelling idea. I’m also not that excited about the idea of constructor innovation being limited to what you can achieve with a Haas budget.

The budget cap is probably the bluntest tool available for addressing constructor performance balancing. For example, the current chassis rules make aero incredibly complex to design (which is expensive), and makes close racing impossible (because of all the dirty air). They would have been better off simplifying those rules (and maybe bringing back ground effect). Look at how well Racing Point performed last weekend, they nearly got a podium. The only significant change they made was copying the Mercedes 2019 aero kit.

I would be very surprised if Haas is spending anywhere close to the incoming budget cap. They arguably have the smallest expenditure thanks to the Ferrari parts deal and contracting the chassis out to Dallara. Of the current teams, I think only Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mclaren (by a much smaller margin) are spending above the incoming cap.

Sealed ground effect will probably not return to F1, not for performance reasons but safety. Introducing the seal greatly increases downforce but once it is broken, the dropoff is incredible. Maintaining that would be nearly impossible with surface imperfections and debris on the track.

The Haas budget for last year was ~ $170 million, not all of that goes to capped expenses, but after you account for that it puts them just under the new cap (Williams, Toro Rosso and Alfa Romeo all spend less than Haas). Renault, McLaren (about $270 million each) and Racing Point (about $190 million) are all above it. There are also 0 teams currently under the cap who make their own engines (Renault is the lowest budget non-customer team). So in terms of budget the current cap really does push everybody down to about the same level as Haas.

Regarding ground effect, the new 2021 regs have already brought it back. They’ve simplified the wing designs, and moved a lot of the downforce to ground effect. It’s not the same level of ground effect that F1 had in the 70s/80s, it’s more like the current IndyCar ground effect design. But the result from a following car perspective is the same. Moving the downforce from wake generating bodywork to under the chassis. However the overall effect is less downforce and therefore slower cars on circuit.

Those numbers are pretty generous, I would beg to differ on at least some of them. [1][2][3]

My mistake when you mentioned ground effect, I thought you meant sealed (skirts and fans). The ground effect you mean is already a thing in present F1 thanks to diffusers. The new rules have just made the diffuser bigger and simplified the front and rear wings.

[1] https://www.racefans.net/2019/10/07/todt-admits-2021-budget-...

[2] https://www.racefans.net/2019/12/27/the-cost-of-f1-2019-team...

[3] https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/02/the-cost-of-f1-2019-part...

The budget cap was revised down after Covid hit (down to $145 million from $175 million), to stop the midfield from going broke, and Ross Brawn says they’re going to lower it further in the coming years [0].

You can’t figure out exactly what teams that’s going to hit, because publicly available finances don’t have enough detail. But it’s either going to bring spending more or less in line with Haas or Racing Point, who are both pretty close in terms of spending anyway. The reason McLaren (a relatively big spending team) are so publicly in favour of it is that they’ve had some pretty serious financial trouble going on recently.

[0]: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.breaking-news-f1-...

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