Shovlin: Calling the fine “draconian” is an exaggeration

The Red Bull Racing management, which has commented on the sanctions imposed on the team for breaches of the financial rules, calls them “draconian”, but representatives of the rival camp think such assessments are exaggerated.

First of all, we are talking about a 10% reduction in the time spent working in a wind tunnel and research using CFD technologies.

The current sporting regulations not only strictly determine the time teams can spend on such research, but also determine the difference between the teams – last year’s Constructors’ Cup winner can only use 90% of the allotted time, while the last-placed team – 112.5%. The handicap between them changes in 2.5% increments.

“The amount of the fine is little more than a team that would have lost one place higher in the Constructors’ Championship,” said Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ chief race engineer. – Therefore, I think it is an exaggeration to call the fine “draconian”. Reducing the number of sessions in the wind tunnel limits your freedom when developing a completely new concept, but we’ve already studied the new regulations quite a bit.

But you will of course have to work more efficiently. However, if we assume that we are talking about a loss of lap time at the level of 0.5 seconds, it would turn out that the team that took last place would have an advantage of more than three and a half seconds over of the first , but definitely not this one.

But it all depends on how you make the right decision during the season. I’d be talking about a tenth, or maybe a slightly bigger difference, two tenths at the most. If you really evaluate the possible losses, they can be like this.

If you count the number of sessions in the wind tunnel, there are only four or five fewer sessions available to Red Bull Racing. I cannot name the exact number, I have not done such calculations.

But, as I said, it would affect the work of the team if it had to correct and catch up with a mistake in the chosen concept. In that case, it would take away your discretion when conducting a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of different options.

Source: F1 News

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