F1 News: Toto Wolff Accuses Other Teams Of Cost Cap Loophole to Further Development
The FIA has stepped up its policing to ensure that teams don't transfer intellectual property from their projects outside of F1 unless they are accounted for under the cost cap regulations.
Technical Directive TD45 issued by the FIA earlier this year states just that. It was suspected that a few teams had been using intellectual property from their research projects outside of F1 which was then used for the development of their cars but never fell under the budget cap officially.
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To give a few examples, Adrian Newey of Red Bull has been working on a project away from the F1 team. Mercedes technical director James Allison has been involved in INEOS’ America’s Cup sailing project for the last few years. Such projects and many others belonging to other teams are under the FIA's scanner for audit.
However, Neither Red Bull nor Mercedes is concerned about the 'policing' measures. They state that they have been fully compliant with the FIA regulations so there is nothing to hide or worry about.
Speaking to Motorsport.com about the transparency Mercedes has maintained, team boss Toto Wolff said:
“We have one entity, and that same entity does all the F1 work and does some of the non-F1 work, where America’s Cup is the biggest activity for some of our non-F1 customers.
"All is transparent. All the books are open. We haven’t created any subsidiaries, or any other companies, and there are no cross-shareholdings. All is on the table.
"In that respect, we have nothing to hide. Every detail of our non-F1 work is being put open to the FIA, and I hope we can be a role model to other teams.”
Speaking on the probability of other teams exploiting the regulations loophole, Toto has made a startling revelation. When asked if other teams had exploited the loophole, he said:
“I think so. Yes.
"But the work that the FIA has put into auditing us was big work and big effort, and I have no doubt that they are going to do the same with the other teams. If someone has been cavalier or has cheated, then they’re going to find out.”
Wolff hasn't mentioned names yet but the fact that he is aware of such wrongdoing is enough proof for the FIA to pull its socks up.
Red Bull on the other hand has been sailing on the same boat as Mercedes by stating that they have nothing to hide. Speaking about the different Business entities Red Bull owns and how they've managed to comply with TD45 as opposed to older regulations, team boss Christian Horner said:
“We’ve had a very constructive period with the FIA and, as an organisation now, we have a huge amount of process in place regarding compliance.
"As the regulations and things like TD45 firm up and become regulatory, it actually just creates more clarity."
“I think the problem in the early days is in the ambiguity of a brand-new set of regulations. As the regulations mature in many respects, it becomes more straightforward.
"We haven’t had to make any changes as a result of TD45.
"Obviously all the business structures are very different. For example, Ferrari act as one company with the entire road car business. So, their submission is somewhat different to the teams that are just purely focused on F1.
"At Red Bull, we have Red Bull Racing, we have Red Bull Powertrains, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and we have Red Bull Advanced Services. So, there’s a series of companies that all have to interact with each other.
"But we’ve worked closely with the FIA, and they’ve done a very thorough job.”
Though the two big names are confident that they will come out clean, it would be interesting to see if the FIA spots non-compliance in any of the teams on the grid.