Budget cap.

As with Schumacher when he shunted Villeneuve off in a clear contradiction of the rules, exclusion is the only correct solution. Team and Drivers.

I suspect this will be like 2007 and spygate. Max Mosley wanted McLaren excluded from both championships, but various FIA members from selected countries such as Spain lobbied against McLaren being excluded from the drivers championship because of how entertaining that year had been. I doubt that the FIA would want to take away Vertappen’s championship for a similar-reason. But say Verstappen's car had failed Abu Dhabi 2021 post-race scrutineering he would have been disqualified. So that’s where the question lies, what sort of punishment will they hand out? If not harsh enough, it might encourage other teams to spend a bit more and get away with a penalty that won’t affect their championship-position.

It could be argued that 2021 was such a close-battle, greater spending on upgrades could have been advantageous…this is even more of a farce now.

I see that the FIA accepted what the teams presented to them for the amount of spend without auditing the figures further. There must be countless ways to deceive the FIA e.g. If you have a second team you could ensure that some of the first teams costs get processed as if they were for the second team or some of the aero and other development work could be shared to an extent. It would also be possible to get a title sponsor to pay a supplier or staff directly and avoid that expense coming through the team's accounts.

Without full scrutiny the figures could be miles out.

Rumer has it that RB's overspend has come about from how they pay Adrian Newey. As a top employee I understand that they sit outside the cost cap but because Adrian is a contractor his salary has to sit inside the cost cap. I guess that's an understandable error if the rumer is true but also should mean that the cost cap needs review.

The cost cap is in essence a simple concept. Set an amount the teams can spend and penalise those who go above it. The trouble comes when it's managed like a tax code with all sorts of deductions and allowances which teams can play about with and clearly have been. In RBs case I suspect they spent money they thought wasnt included in the cap and the FIA have determined it has.

The bigger problem is punishment and more to the point the fact that the exact punishments and how they're determined hasn't been set out in the first place. The FIA seem to be stuck in a position where they don't really know what to do. Disqualification of Max from the '21 championship would be politically unpalatable especially given how intense a title fight we had but just disqualifying Red Bull makes it worth the punishment from their point of view if it meant the difference between Max and Lewis winning the championship.

It seems they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Penalise Max and many fans will be upset, possibly enough to stop watching but punish just the team and some would argue it's worth spending a bit extra to get your driver over the line for a championship win as its not like anyone really remembers the constructors champions (how many viewers are oblivious that Merc won that championship in '21?).

F1 is about protecting the bottm line, the money going into it and the FIA.

Simply deduct the amount they've exceeded by from next season's cap. That way they will still be penalised but not retrospectively.

Nice idea but if I were an F1 team I'd be more than happy to sacrifice some of next years budget by overspending this year if it resulted in a championship win. When more teams cotton on to this you could have a farcical situation where half the grid have been cheating in the hope of getting a championship advantage!

I understand lot of the overspending was due to monies paid to Michael Masi during the safety car period in Abu Dhabi.

Well Horner is married to Ginger Spice…….

Well, if RB can get away with whatever they dropped on the situation, just declare a precedent and tell them to stuff the budget.

Well that too tbh. Whatever, they lack credibility and if they do nothing to those teams that screwed the system they deserve to be removed and replaced. Probably by a wet Haddock two weeks past cell by date. Yes, intentionaly stfo and stuff that will never happen.

I think it’s fairly lenient, at the very least the £7m fine should have come out of the cost cap.

Had to laugh at Horner saying 7% less wind tunnel time is worth up to 0.5 seconds, if that’s the case Williams should be able to step forward by 2.5 seconds a lap vs Red Bull next year!

Seen a few comments on social media pointing out that the FiA’s admission that there was human error in Abu Dhabi ‘21 allied with a RBR overspend means it’s clear to everyone inside and outside of the sport that Hamilton was the World Champion in 2021.

Hard to disagree and awarding the title based on this evidence is no different to Olympic medals and several TdFs being withdrawn years after the event.