The two sides of F1’s next big rules row

Until yesterday’s stunning exchanges over the FIA opening an investigation into a potential conflict of interest between Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff and F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, the off-track political spectacle of the 2023 Formula 1 campaign rather reflected the action on-track.

Plenty of potential flair ups, but little that really spilled over from a cold to hot confrontation.

When considering only the political intrigue around the 2023 cars and specific sporting or technical concerns of the teams, the flexi-wing saga was tackled via a series of FIA clampdowns, culminating in Technical Directive 018 being enforced from the Singapore race.

Early focus went on Aston Martin in this regard, but the sting really got taken out of the situation when Red Bull’s form loss at that Singapore event was devastatingly reversed by Max Verstappen’s Suzuka domination. 

That was just a week on from his squad insisting it had changed nothing on the RB19 as a result of TD018. The 2021 flexing bodywork furore, this was not. 

Given what happened in 2022 and the results of F1’s first cost cap filings leading to Red Bull’s penalty – the financial element of which was eased by the reported fee Alpine later paid to secure Pierre Gasly’s services from AlphaTauri – there was much interest in the FIA’s second analysis of the various financial matters. 

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Verstappen's dominance was ended in Singapore following a TD, but he returned to form in Japan one week later

But summer rumours of at least two teams breaking the 2022 cost cap were scotched by the announcement in early September that all squads had in fact complied with the limit of $135 million plus extras between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022. 

Running through the year, however, was the Andretti entry saga – the FIA pitted against FOM and the teams. The latest development – that General Motors, already a partner in Andretti’s bid, has registered with the FIA to be an F1 engine builder from 2028 – led to no positional movement from either side in the Abu Dhabi season finale. 

But at that race, existing ingredients of another political dynamic recipe did begin to rise.  

“The million-dollar question that none of us know is how early did they [Red Bull] turn off this year’s car” Zak Brown

This is the fear from Red Bull’s rivals that its planned closer ties with junior squad AlphaTauri might actually somehow lead to a benefit for the energy drinks giant’s main operation.  

As a result of changes in the Red Bull GmbH’s top management in the succession that followed the death of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, it was decided that rather than offload AlphaTauri, the soon-to-be rebranded squad must have even closer ties to the senior team.  

This will come in the form of AlphaTauri taking on more customer parts from the main Red Bull team, but also more of its aerodynamics engineers moving to the UK to work at a new facility.  

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

AlphaTauri will take more parts from Red Bull in 2024

The primary aim of these steps is to lift AlphaTauri’s competitiveness on a cost-effective basis for an organisation that owns two teams.

The desire for this followed the squad that finished seventh and sixth in the seasons before 2022 at the end F1’s ultra-high-downforce-era, after targeted closer ‘synergy’ with Red Bull, making a poor start to the current ground-effect era.

When Autosport asked McLaren team boss Zak Brown if his squad – which reversed a pace deficit to Red Bull approximately clocked at around a second in lap time across the 2023 campaign by other teams – closing the remaining gap was realistic heading in 2024, his reply was politically intriguing.

“The million-dollar question that none of us know is how early did they [Red Bull] turn off this year’s car,” Brown, speaking at the Las Vegas race in an exclusive interview, replied.  

His answer rather previewed Lewis Hamilton’s post-Abu Dhabi GP comment that “Red Bull won by 17 seconds and have not touched the car since August”. 

“We know we’ve outperformed the others in the development race,” Brown continued, “and we know we’ve closed the gap to Red Bull. But what none of us know is did Red Bull stop and we just caught up or were they still developing.  

“Also, we have some big concerns over the alliance between AlphaTauri and Red Bull. I think that is something that needs to be addressed in the future. So, I still think the sport has a way to go to make sure that everyone is truly independent.” 

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

McLaren is unsure if it closed the gap to Red Bull or it simply stopped developing its 2023 car

When asked how the situation might benefit Red Bull, rather than the AlphaTauri targets already revealed, Brown said: “A lot of different ways. There is a reason why they are moving a lot of their people from Italy. As Helmut [Marko] has said, they are going to do absolutely everything they can to benefit from having two teams.  

“Which I get because that’s what the rules say. But I think we need to look at the governance of the sport around technical alliances.” 

While other teams, including Mercedes, kept their power dry on this topic in Abu Dhabi, Autosport sources suggested that the real fear many of Red Bull’s rivals have over a closer collaboration with AlphaTauri has been stoked by the Faenza-based team’s impressive development work on the AT04 to the end of 2023.

"We've seen cars that are a lot closer to ours in specification than an AlphaTauri. They've either been green or orange and black. I don't see it as an issue. It's fully within the within the regs" Christian Horner

The floor update it unveiled at the last race was aimed at improving the AlphaTauri’s low-speed turn prowess. This effort, according to McLaren team boss Andrea Stella, left the AT04 as “nowadays the best car in low speed”. 

But that is one of the few areas where Red Bull’s RB19 was weak. And so, what the team’s rivals really fear is that the challenge in policing exchange of ideas and intellectual property in F1 – covered by Article 17.2.1 of the 2024 technical rules – means somehow one squad’s development investment might benefit another.  

The considerable transfer of team staff in recent years has already led to much speculation on this exact anxiety.  

Red Bull even raised it with its “green Red Bull” comments at the 2022 Spanish GP, following its former aero chief Dan Fallows joining Aston Martin and that team being the first to take a car development path that followed what has proved to be the best car concept in the new rules era – the one started in the RB18. 

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Policing idea transfer as engineers swap teams is hard to implement

It is simply very difficult for the FIA to police technical ideas engineers might form based on their work at one team before they transfer to another. Nor conversations between staff where these take place.

The governing body has no desire to monitor F1 team staff communication and travel to an invasive level. Its technical auditing staff instead require teams to explain how they arrived at certain development ideas and prove they were independently conceived and then work upon.

Red Bull is adamant it is playing within the rules. Indeed, the FIA has looked into the specific pairing in question and found no evidence of rule breaking. It’s single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, said in Abu Dhabi that “we haven't seen anything in AlphaTauri that is concerning us”, as its overall floor design is so different to the one on the RB19.  

Plus, designing parts in isolation even for the theoretical benefit of another team is very challenging, as they wouldn’t work on a car profile they are not designed for originally. 

When Autosport asked team principal Christian Horner about Brown’s comments, he replied: “I think those teams that perhaps don't work with a supply team…. I mean it's totally within the regulations.  

“Mercedes supply gearboxes to Williams, Aston Martin – to name but two. And Ferrari obviously supply a great deal to Haas, whose relationships if anything are even closer than what we've seen with AlphaTauri.  

“So, we've seen cars that are a lot closer to ours in specification than an AlphaTauri. They've either been green or orange and black. I don't see it as an issue. It's fully within the within the regs.  

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Christian Horner argues other teams have forged closer technical ties than Red Bull has with AlphaTauri

“And of course, for a small team – like a Haas, like a Williams, like an AlphaTauri – to be able to buy those components is essential. They don't have the resources to make suspension, gearboxes and all the things that goes into that.

“We've always had the full transparency with the FIA. And I think there's a blueprint that is in the Haas model anyway.  

“There's relationships that exist... We had a Pink Mercedes a few years ago, it's certainly going nowhere near that. But it's... AlphaTauri are just using what they're allowed to use within the regs.” 

The governing body has no desire to monitor F1 team staff communication and travel to an invasive level

When contacted for comment on this article, the FIA provided the following statement: “The FIA is committed to the thorough and rigorous policing of these regulations, and has significantly expanded its auditing department to ensure that this continues into the future.” 

Sources have also suggested that at the final 2023 F1 Commission Meeting that occurred in Abu Dhabi, a proposal to look into the matter of teams collaborating in future regulations given the current focus was put forward and that there was resistance from two teams.  

This in turn suggests the Ferrari-Haas arrangement is not drawing additional concern right now or it surely would’ve been four votes against. 

Neither of those teams are, of course, dominating F1 right now. That takes weight away from the suggestion that technical collaboration between two teams is a big advantage. Although what could be said to balance that is the fact that there isn’t a common ownership in the Ferrari-Haas case. 

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Ferrari may have strong technical ties with Haas, but neither team is dominant right now

So, thanks to Red Bull’s unprecedented 95.5% single-season victory rate in 2023 and Verstappen’s record-setting 19 wins, what might come next year in a season where resurgences from Mercedes and Ferrari are expected, plus more McLaren progress, raises the temperature in F1’s political kitchen.

Based on what the championship witnessed in 2023, the current collaboration concern has the potential to either boil away as the latest dashed politicking fear in the ever-present art of winning F1’s off-track game too, or it will spill over into something tangible and potentially burning.  

Right now, the timer on when things are done is counting down to the 2024 designs hitting the track for the first day of pre-season testing.  

77 days, 76 days, 75 days… 

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

The Red Bull situation could boil over when testing begins in just a few months