{"id":1114770,"date":"2022-06-29T18:34:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T17:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/?p=1114770"},"modified":"2022-06-29T18:34:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T17:34:37","slug":"an-f1-designed-submarine-why-gp-teams-are-getting-involved-in-bikes-boats-electric-racers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/single-seaters\/f1\/an-f1-designed-submarine-why-gp-teams-are-getting-involved-in-bikes-boats-electric-racers\/","title":{"rendered":"An F1-designed submarine? Why GP teams are getting involved in bikes, boats & electric racers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Whenever there has been talk about the budget cap – or financial regulations to use the official term – in Formula 1 recently, it has generally been a row between teams looking to increase the figure and those who don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

Inflation has squeezed some teams who were operating right up against the limit, but then those who don\u2019t face the same issue are suggesting the easy answer is to spend less on car development to make savings.<\/p>\n

While that row might soon get resolved with some sort of compromise offered up by Formula 1 and the FIA, there have been some other interesting developments in the past few days that show the impact of the budget cap in different ways.<\/p>\n

The first of those was off the back of an announcement at McLaren that I attended on Monday. It wasn\u2019t an F1 announcement (there will be a theme there), but instead it was the team renaming its Extreme E and Formula E outfits under the McLaren Electric Racing umbrella, and adding title sponsorship from Saudi Arabian region Neom for good measure.<\/p>\n

\n \"McLaren\n
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McLaren will have two electric racing teams in 2023: its Extreme E outfit and the new Formula E squad<\/p>\n

\n McLaren\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

Now I\u2019m not going to get into the moral argument surrounding taking money from the Saudis at this stage, but it is a deal that is going to help boost the McLaren Racing coffers and allow them to pursue success in both categories while also having a chance of turning a profit in a spec series.<\/p>\n

What is interesting from an F1 perspective, though, is how the limit on certain spend items under the financial regulations has played a part in the team\u2019s expansion.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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McLaren has revealed the Gen3 Formula E car for its debut season in the series. CEO Zak Brown says that it will have the resources to win the title from the word go<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t

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It\u2019s not that McLaren wasn\u2019t already looking at different racing categories it wanted to be involved in – as CEO Zak Brown was always clear that he wanted to enter IndyCar and has also been considering the World Endurance Championship (WEC) alongside the likes of Extreme E and Formula E – but the reasoning was always if it didn\u2019t distract from the F1 programme. Instead, there\u2019s now a way it can help it.<\/p>\n

There are limitations on what teams can spend from a capital expenditure (cap ex) point of view under F1\u2019s budget cap, and so each investment made in facilities needs to be really worth it rather than just providing small gains. Or it could be spread across multiple projects\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWith some of the limitations you have on equipment and cap ex it\u2019s hard to justify some items where it\u2019s exclusively for one series,\u201d Brown said on Monday. \u201cSo to be able to go \u2018we are able to buy that and use it across three or four different series\u2019 then that makes some of the cap ex more justifiable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut from a people standpoint we\u2019ve already done all that work. We\u2019re right-sized in Formula 1 now for the size of Formula 1, so there\u2019s no crossover in that sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ferrari says its Le Mans Hypercar benefits from F1 knowledge \u2014 but not staff<\/p>\n

\n Ferrari\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

Brown\u2019s not alone in stating people aren\u2019t moving, despite salaries making up a decent proportion of an F1 team\u2019s budget now it is limited. Ferrari is working on a Hypercar entry for WEC but Antonello Coletta – the Head of Ferrari Attivita Sportive GT which runs the sports car programme – said at Le Mans there was no movement of personnel there either.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There\u2019s been] no big recruitment because honestly I prefer to grow with a little number; if you grow a lot you lose the control of the staff,\u201d Coletta said. \u201cThis is the philosophy of Ferrari. Honestly, we are not many many people, but just the people who work very well. It’s easier to control the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cZero [have come from Ferrari\u2019s F1 team] because our team is our team. We share knowledge but it is a completely different attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the case everywhere, though. A day after McLaren\u2019s announcement, it was off to Milton Keynes to hear about a new Red Bull project. While Christian Horner and Adrian Newey sat among all of the team\u2019s Formula 1 cars from the past, the creation of RB17 might carry F1 naming but is actually a track-going hypercar, the first that the company will make exclusively.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Some used the Covid pandemic to put up a new set of shelves or paint the spare room but, when you’re Adrian Newey, even your lockdown projects are more ambitious…<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t

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