Jordan's Track Talk

Tag: 2021

  • AM enter agreement with FIA over breach of ’21 Regs

    Aston Martin have entered an Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA) with the FIA following a procedural breach of the 2021 Financial Regulations.

    After the submission of financial documents by all 10 Formula One teams, the Cost Cap Administration carried out a review under the Financial Regulations, and Aston Martin were found to be in a procedural breach of the rules – even though their costs during the 2021 reporting period were under the cost cap.

    The Silverstone based team were found to have incorrectly excluded and/or adjusted costs pertaining to the building of their new headquarters, new F1 simulator, wind tunnel fees, R&D tax credit, a signing bonus cost, use of transferable components, used inventories, service desk costs, cost of catering services at their headquarters, costs of desks and chairs, sponsor services and outsourced personnel services.

    The team now must pay a financial penalty of $450,000 within 30 days of the date of execution of the ABA, plus bear the cost incurred by the Cost Cap Administration.

    The Cost Cap Administration recognised that AMR has acted cooperatively and in good faith throughout the review process and has sought to provide additional information and evidence when requested in a timely manner, that this is the first year of the full application of the Financial Regulations and that there is no accusation or evidence that AMR has sought or obtained any undue advantage as a result of the breach.

    FIA statement.

    Non-compliance by the team with any terms of the ABA will result in further procedural breach and automatic referral to the cost cap adjudication panel.

  • RB enter agreement with FIA over breach of ’21 Regulations

    Red Bull have entered an Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA) with the FIA following a breach of the 2021 Financial Regulations, F1’s governing body have said.

    For the first time in Formula One history, all 10 teams were required to submit their accounts of their annual spending against the Cost Cap for 2021 by the following March. On Friday in Mexico, the FIA announced that Red Bull was found to be in breach.

    The Cost Cap Administration recognised that Red Bull Racing has acted cooperatively throughout the review process and has sought to provide additional information and evidence when requested in a timely manner, that this is the first year of the full application of the Financial Regulations and that there is no accusation or evidence that RBR (Red Bull Racing) has sought at any time to act in bad faith, dishonestly or in fraudulent manner, nor has it wilfully concealed any information from the Cost Cap Administration. In these circumstances, the Cost Cap Administration offered to RBR an ABA to resolve this matter. That offer was accepted by RBR.

    The FIA.

    In the summary, it was revealed Red Bull exceeded the cost cap in 2021, of £118,036,00 by less than 5% by less than 5% ( £1,864.00 or 1.6%) which is a minor breach. The FIA said they acknowledge that had Red Bull applied “the correct treatment within its full year reporting documentation of their Notional Tax Credit within its 2021 submission of a value of £1,431,438” and therefore would have exceeded the cap by $432,652 or 0.37%.

    Regarding sanctions for breaching the cost cap, Red Bull must pay $7 million to the FIA within 30 days of the date of execution of the ABA.

    They also receive a minor sporting penalty in the form of 10% reduction in their allocated Restricted Wind Tunnel Testing and Restricted Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) limits. Based on Red Bull’s championship position, the coefficient used to calculate their allocation will drop from 70% to 63%.

    Non-compliance by Red Bull with any terms of the ABA will result in further procedural breach and automatic referral to the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel.

  • Overview F1 2021

    We have had an amazing season and its only right that as the year is coming to the end I take a look back on the year and pick out some brilliant moments/races we have had this year.

    Which 3 drivers were the best this season?

    I am going to pick the two most obvious ones, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers gave it their all this year and came back fighting after things which have happened on track. My third pick would be Carlos Sainz, I feel like his just beat his ex team-mate to the third place spot but only because of how well and quick he settled into Ferrari, he managed to grab four podiums in his first year, so it will be interesting to see how he can do in his second year!

    Biggest shock of the season?

    I would say the Esteban Ocon win in Hungary or Daniel Ricciardo’s in Monza. The Alpine win was quite surprising considering the car changed quite a bit from last year and obviously Alonso’s marvellous defending from Hamilton helped secure his team-mates win but Esteban was there when he needed to be and it was nice to see him rewarded for it! Danny Rics win in Monza wow, if someone asked me back in June if Ricciardo would of been one of the winners this year I would have said no! And I think thats what made the win so great, he and the whole McLaren team just deserved the 1-2 and they had no problems at all on the Sunday.

    The best individual drive?

    Lewis Hamilton, Brazil. Even if your not a Lewis fan you have to admit he done amazing that weekend! To be demoted down the field twice over the course of the weekend is just wow and to top it off he won. I definitely think that will be a race which will be talked about for a long time!

    The best qualifying moment?

    Hmmm, I had a few for this, but one of the best moments for me was Sochi, where the top 3 was Norris on pole, Sainz 2nd and Russell 3rd. It was like a little preview of what is to come and what made it better was that Russell was in a Williams!

    A team I think thats improved…

    Ferrari. Plain and simple! Partly because of the new team-mates Carlos & Charles, as they get on great on and off track, they seem to qualify together and finish quite close together to so it feels a lot more equal at Ferrari. Another part of the improvement would be the car, they’ve managed to figure out what went wrong in 2020 and switched it around so quickly and to pull of P3 in the Constructors.

    Most heartbreaking moment?

    I would say Lando Norris, loosing his win in Sochi after the whole switching/non switching tyre situation. I felt like he deserved a win this season and I’ve said it since the beginning! Sochi was a learning curve for him and the team and it will most likely give him the hunger to go for the win next year.

    A team I thought would do better?

    Aston Martin. They outshined in quite a few races last year, but obviously they just couldn’t get it right this year. They did have their podium in Baku and as well had one in Hungary but got disqualified, so they did have the pace at some places, I just thought they would’ve done a bit better and it felt like they didn’t try and upgrade their car during the season.

    What driver and team need to do better in 2022?

    For driver I would say Lance, I feel like this year he was just floating about I didn’t see something amazing from him, where as his team-mate who only joined the team this year down really well, hopefully AM come up with a good car next year which will suit Stroll and we will see more of what he can do.

    For the teams I managed to nail it down to two! Williams and Haas. Even though Williams scored a good set of points this year, it can only go up from here, new regs for everyone so a clean slate and it will be interesting to see how the British team can cope with it all. Now Haas, obviously we have all seen whats been going on with them, but I feel with Schumacher in the car and again new regs next season they could possibly have a chance at scoring points hopefully frequently, these two teams I’m going to be keeping my eye on when the season starts up.

  • Formula Two drivers

    Since my last post regarding Formula Two drivers for the 2021 season there has been three more drivers which have been announced since:

    Teams:Drivers:
    Prema RacingRobert Schwartzman and Oscar Piastri
    Uni-Virtuosi Racing*TBA* and Felipe Drugovich
    Carlin*TBA* and Jehan Daruvala
    Hitech Grand PrixLiam Lawson and Jüri Vips
    Art Grand Prix*TBA*
    MP Motorsport*TBA* and Lirim Zendel
    Charouz Racing System*TBA*
    Dams*TBA* and Marcus Armstrong
    Campos RacingRalph Boschung and *TBA*
    HWA RacelabMatteo Nannini and Alessio Deledda
    Trident*TBA*

    HWA Racelab has announced there 2021 Italian duo they have signed Alessio and Matteo, Matteo is doing F2 aswell as F3 with forty five races in total, meaning he is going to be very busy… Matteo has already driven for HWA in Bahrain at post season testing getting his first taste of Formula Two, however it is his second season for Formula Three.

    Deledda has spent the past two seasons at Campos Racing in Formula Three. He first started his carreer on two wheels then decided to go to four which he then took part in the Italian F4, aswell he has experience from in both Formula Renault Eurocup and Macau Grand Prix.

    Also Marcus Armstrong joins DAMS for his second season of Formula Two, he has switched from ART Grand Prix. He had an on and off season last year with taking two podiums within the first four races. Marcus drove for DAMS at Bahrain for the post season testing and he convinced them to sign for him in 2021.

  • Alfa Romeo car launch

    So the first team of F1 has set a date to launch their car for 2021, and that is Alfa Romeo. The Switzerland based team have announced that they will be launching their car on Monday 22nd February in Warsaw, Poland.

    The new Alfa Romeo, is set to be called C41 even though last years car was C39, it will be launched in Polands capital as the title partner ORLEN who has some of their key operations based in the city.

    It will be driven by Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi, the duo have been paired up with each other for a third consecutive season.

    The C41 is set to be a challenger this year as they will be aiming to be more at the top of the grid, last year they only scored 8 points throughout the season, meaning they finished 8th overall in the constructors title, finishing before Haas and Williams.

    The C41 will hit the track for pre-season testing in Bahrain on the 12th-14th March, it was scheduled to be held in Barcelona from the 2nd to the 4th of March but it changed as the FIA figured it would be better for logistical reasons to be held at Bahrain where the first race is held two weeks after testing. One positive to take from this is that in Bahrain the weather is more reliable than what it would be in Barcelona.

    To save costs, testing has been lowered to 3 days, so only one and a half day for each driver, this will inconvenience some drivers who have moved to new teams including the rookies.

    Below is the link for what Alfa Romeo put on their Instagram this morning https://www.instagram.com/p/CKQtR6OIy7P/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

    One car launch date revealed, and only 9 more to go!!

  • F2 drivers and more…

    So far not all the drivers for Formula 2 has been announced yet, but so far the drivers are:

    Teams Drivers
    Prema RacingRobert Schwartzman and Oscar Piastri
    Uni-Virtuosi Racing*TBA* and Felipe Drugovich
    Carlin*TBA* and Jehan Daruvala
    Hitech GrandPrixLiam Lawson and Jüri Vips
    Art GrandPrix*TBA*
    MP Motorsport*TBA* and Lirim Zendeli
    Charouz Racing System*TBA*
    Dams*TBA*
    Campos RacingRalph Boschung and *TBA*
    HWA RaceLab*TBA*
    Trident*TBA*

    So we have 14 spaces left for F2 2021 season… it will be interesting to see who gets announced next, especially after the fact that Mick Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda and Nikita Mazepin all got promoted to F1 for this year.

    The FIA Formula 2 championship promoters announced in December that these eleven teams above have been selected for 2021-2023 seasons, the same teams which competed in the 2020 season.

    Formula 2 have eight races for this year, it will have three races per weekend the weekend format is the following: Friday sessions, you have one free practice session of 45 minutes and then a qualifying session of 30 minutes. Saturday will have two sprint races. The feature race will now take place on a Sunday morning before Formula One.

    Some may think well what about starting grids? That is all sorted… The results from Fridays qualifying will be the starting grid for the feature race on a Sunday. The starting grid of Saturdays sprint race 1 will be determined by reversing the top 10 finishers of Fridays qualifying session results. Finally, Saturdays sprint race 2 will be determined by reversing the top 10 finishers of sprint race 1.

    Personally I think this is such a good idea, it makes the championship more exciting by reversing the top 10 round, i am looking forward to the F2 season this year and seeing who else gets announced. The first race for the Formula Two Championship is the 26th-28th March at Sakhir, Bahrain.