Due to the new budget ceiling, the best Formula 1 teams are working for the title with limited resources. The focus is all the more on the technology exchange between the manufacturers and their “B-Teams”. That’s why McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl expects a clear statement from the World Automobile Federation (FIA) about what’s allowed and what’s not.
The brands could outsource part of their aerodynamics development to the partner teams in order to save costs and meet budget restrictions. A case for the FIA, as McLaren team boss Seidl believes. Ferrari and Haas in particular are a target for the competition. Ever since Haas entered Formula 1, the partnership with Ferrari has been viewed critically.
“First of all, all of us in the team are very busy with ourselves this week, so I can’t specifically talk about the two cars from Haas and Ferrari,” said Seidl after the Formula 1 test in Bahrain. “But it’s no secret that these relationships, which can exist within the framework of regulations as they currently exist, are a concern to us in general.”
McLaren insists on reducing the exchange of partner teams, so that the premier class is a pure constructors’ championship with “ten to twelve real constructors” of Formula 1 cars. According to Seidl, only the purchase of drive units and gearboxes should be allowed. “The teams should have to do everything else themselves,” he clarifies.
Seidel has these worries
That’s why McLaren has joined forces with other teams who, according to Seidl, “are plagued by the same concerns” to establish a dialogue with the FIA. “And I hope that at some point we will take steps. We recognize that monitoring exactly where the line is is a difficult challenge. The most effective and easiest way forward is to set clear boundaries for information sharing .”
Seidl is supported by new Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer, who warns that data from the wind tunnel and other information is being shared in an informal way. “The concern is that those who share a wind tunnel can have coffee together,” he told Sky.
“And especially when it comes to partners who, over a coffee, say, ‘How did that go, the underbody you tried?’ The answer: ‘Don’t go that way, not that well.'” Szafnauer used to work for the Aston Martin team, which has close ties to Mercedes. According to Szafnauer, however, there was never an exchange of ideas.
“That definitely didn’t happen with Aston Martin and Mercedes because we had solid procedures in place,” he says. “And we didn’t go for coffee with our aerodynamicists. But that can happen when the aerodynamicists live in the same place, use the same wind tunnel and go to the same canteen.”
According to Szafnauer, Aston Martin used the wind tunnel only on weekends, while Mercedes worked on their developments in the facility during the week. That’s why, as the then Aston Martin team boss explains, the engineers never met on site. However, he does not rule out that other partner teams are just as strict as it was at Mercedes and Aston Martin.
However, there was a lot of excitement in the 2020 season when the then Racing Point team (now Aston Martin) came to the test with their new car. The vehicle was almost like the world champion car from Mercedes in 2019. At that time, too, a discussion was sparked about how much a team can copy solutions from another racing team and what goes too far.