Future spending, yes. But the teams are not starting off at equal heights on the capability ladder. Premises, facilities, wind-tunnels, sims, autoclaves, machine tools, computers are all going to have come out of the capped budget for those that don't have the best already. From 2021 the cost of that sort of thing is going to have to be balanced against staff costs. "Buy new CFD computers? We need to lose 100 people first." McLaren have just got go-ahead for a new wind-tunnel and are upgrading their simulator. Got to get anything like that done from the 2020 budget or have to make some horrid compromises later.

I see the big three as having at least five years to continue to capitalise on their present positions before they have to make the same hard decisions as the rest.

 

Pretty much all I was getting at.
But yes, everything you said is, in my opinion, totally accurate.
I was just making sure @Martin_F didn't forget about that little tidbit in info.

 

We'll see how the budget cap plays out long term, but honestly I think it's a joke.
As mentioned above, teams trying to do things now, so they can sneak the cost in before it goes into affect, etc...

At the end of the day it's a high tech sport, development should be rewarded, not capped.

 

If Racing Point are now Aston Martin and Aston Martin are struggling to pay bills why on earth would AM want to be dragged into the bottomless money pit that is F1? I know that Mr Stroll Snr has put some money into AM to help keep this great marque afloat but is that sufficient to warrant renaming the team?

All bonkers if you ask me.

Anyway, it's Williams for the Championship

 

Again , another silly season thing I heard this morning, there is another Russian billionaire who is very keen to have a big name in F1, so the theory goes Stroll etc set it up and run it, and then flog to this Russian person.

 

You and me both.

 

Don’t AM spend a lot of sponsorship money with Red Bull? Aren’t they known as Red Bull Aston Martin Racing.
For less than a half share in a racing team which will provide a capital investment in the core business of £500 million it might not be a massive investment if they drop the spend with Red Bull. They might be interested because as already said 2021 brings level playing field and caps.
Anyway, looking forward to three days at Zandvoort in May

 

Yes, the will stop sponsoring Red Bull after this season. They also developed a hypercar together, which will be released within the year.
The way I see it, Aston Martin, instead of giving money to Red Bull, will now receive money from the Stroll consortium and have their own team.

 

Honda not letting Fernando live down his GP2 engine comment. I love the pettiness Honda is showing and not allowing Fernando drive a Honda car for the Indy 500.

 

Why should Honda support a driver who publicly disparaged them while they were paying half of his $40M salary? Fernando is a talented driver but he has also been a cancer at nearly every F1 team he has has driven for.

 

Honda shouldn’t let him drive for them. I’m all for the grudge their holding against Alonso after he embarrassed them at their home GP.

 

Find a seat at Penske then?

 

Grand Prix winners, what's not to like?

 

Not sure he'll find a drive, especially considering:
1) Failure to qualify last time
2) However good in the car, known to be disruptive within a team
3) Profile (and thus marketing/sponsorship potential) in the U.S. not comparable with rest-of-the-world standing.

I appreciate the particular positive of his performance in leading in the early stages on debut. He is, however, one of those drivers whose overall approach/character and apparent inability to think strategically has tended to negate his pure in-car talent to a significant extent.

 

The new HAAS livery has been unveiled:

https://www.racefans.net/2020/02/06/first-pictures-new-haas-vf-20-2020-f1-car/

 

Why does it look like an early 2000's Minardi?

 

Not going to look so nice after Grosjean gets a hold of it.

 

Rich energy drinks went down well then.

 

Ehh it's okay.



I loved the 2017 colors though.