Blog - Formula 1 Tanking

Formula 1 Tanking

It is time to address probably the last issue with F1 - TANKING. I am generally okay with tanking, but it should be reasonable. Teams need to provide sufficient performance to avoid sponsors leaving the team.

Positives of Tanking

It gives weak teams a chance to regroup and spend finances effectively when they are ready.
Few teams tanking allows better results for others. This creates the possibility of a rotational system, where each team has a chance for good results when not tanking while some others are tanking.

Negatives of Tanking

Saving too much money for many seasons with bad results without punishment is unrealistic
Too much money might give high chance to be successful for more seasons and grow the rating to become one of the top teams for an even longer period.

Biggest Problem

Teams can save an enormous amount of money if they tank for many seasons and then they can spend much higher budgets for projects than top teams which would give them an unrealistic advantage.

Solution - Reasonable Tanking

1. Tanking decision will go back to the gap in qualification, if both drivers are too slow compared to the winner, the team will be considered to be tanking. So the chassis minimum level condition will be removed.

2. There will be 2 levels of tanking - soft and hard tanking - both will lead to different penalties.

a) HARD TANKING - both drivers were slower than 104% of the best time in Q1.
If the best time is 01:40.000 the 104% time would be 01:44.000.
if the best time is 01:10.000 the 104% time would be 01:12.800.
(worst times without error in current F1 are at around 103.5%-103.7%).

b) SOFT TANKING - both drivers were slower than 103% of the best time in Q1.
if the best time is 01:40.000 the 103% time would be 01:43.000.
If the best time is 01:10.000 the 103% time would be 01:12.100.
(4 cars = 2 teams are currently slower but just barely).

3. Penalty for tanking

a) no short-term sponsor offers - applied when the last race was evaluated as tanking by the team (soft or hard tanking)
REASON = team is not attractive to sponsors

b) lower percentage to maximum share issue at the end of the season - applied if the team was tanking for at least 5 races during the whole season
- 65% max share issue - normal without penalty
- 55% max share issue - soft penalty if the team was hard tanking during no more than 4 races (others only soft tanking)
- 40% max share issue - hard penalty if the team was hard tanking during 5 or more races
REASON = team is not attractive to new investors

c) current sponsor deal cuts - applied if the team was tanking in 2 races during the previous week
- 5% cut - soft penalty if the team was hard tanking during no more than 1 race
- 50% cut - hard penalty if the team was hard tanking in 2 or more races
REASON = sponsors are not happy with the team's performance

Solution - Saving Too Much Money

Luxury Tax will be introduced. Will be paid if everyday team financial balance is above a certain level.

a) SOFT BALANCE CAP = 160M - 0.2% tax from the difference between balance and soft cap. So if the team has a 165M balance, the tax will be 0.2% from 5M which is 10k every day (770k per full season)

b) HARD BALANCE CAP = 180M - an additional 5% from the difference between balance and hard cap. So if the team has a 185M balance, the tax will be 0.2% from 25M which is 50k every day (3.85M per full season) + 5% from 5M which is 250k every day (19.25M per full season)

Although these figures might seem very high I cannot do radical changes to mess with BMW's strategy they decided to do with previous rules and I certainly do not want to avoid other teams going a similar way. The balance cap will be lowered in the long-term horizon, probably next time when new engine rules are introduced.

Solution - Overspending on Development

There will be spending limits introduced for teams that were above a certain balance in previous seasons.

CHASSIS + AERO PARTS DEVELOPMENT BUDGET
The development budget limit would be 22M for parts valid for a certain season if the team was above 80M during the current or previous season.

ENGINE DEVELOPMENT BUDGET

The development budget limit would be 40M for parts valid for certain rules if the team was above 80M during the last season before new engines can be developed.

Initially limit for the gearbox and energy store is not planned. Might be added later.

Additional Changes

There will be changes to mechanical parts which do not need to be rebuilt currently. I am talking about the steering system and the cooling system,

These parts will be only available for 1 season like the chassis. But there will be an option to create an adjusted part suitable for next season for free with quality lowered by 2% (0.98*original quality) and potential lowered by 0.2% (0.998*original potential).

This means teams will have to improve the part at least once after 2-3 seasons. The managerial decision is when is the right time to do it.

When?

Teams will have the rest of season 46 and full season 47 to adapt to these changes. Then from the beginning of season 48, all of these changes will be started to be used.