Enginegate

The Enginegate Scandal was a series of events that developed into Formula Lego's first Scandal, which took place across Seasons 7 & 8, during which Octan allegedly intentionally sabotaged customer team National's season, and resulted in National cutting ties with Octan, the expulsion and ban of several key members of Octan's technical and administrative team, and the EotLP GP Commission rewriting team partnership rules.

Background

From Season 1 onwards, National purchased and modified both Chasses and Engines from Octan. In an elective and mostly unofficial agreement, National had several representatives who worked with Octan Engineers to ensure that National received the same engines that Octan did, up until one week before the start of the season, when each team's engineers would begin modifying their engines to their hearts content. National retained their representatives to alert National if they suspected that Octan engineers had withheld major updates before they sent the supposedly final engine design to National.

Due to this agreement, National and Octan were relatively competitive with each other throughout the early FL Seasons, and once Osborne began to dominate, in Season 4, they found themselves horrifically tightly matched, either on a race-by-race basis, or overall in the Title Fight. During Season 6, Octan's rookie Technical Officer Elian Lazlo began to test the hypothesis that Octan could close the gap to Osborne by utilising a Rotary (Wankel) Engine. Octan's new Team Manager, Lucilla Svilar, caught wind of this, and instructed him to keep the testing private. When Lazlo came back with the evidence and calculations to prove that the Wankel Engine would be effective, Svilar authorised a budget redirection to increase the size of the Engine staff by nearly two times, and instructed Lazlo to keep word of his new engine quiet, and to continue developing their regular, cylinder-powered engines in the same locations, but to start developing the Wankel engine alongside it, in a different location. Octan Team Owner and outgoing Technical Officer Kai Octan, under whom Lazlo had worked before S5, claimed he had no knowledge of these proceedings, even though he had to sign off on every expenditure that the team undertook. However, audited & released documents showed that the budget increase was not properly accounted, and was placed under several other designations across the company's finances, so Octan's claim that he did not realise that all the increases were being funnelled to one, anti-competition, program are not entirely unplausible.

During the later part of Season 5, and Season 6, Octan engineers researched and began developing a Wankel Engine, which they hoped would power their Season 7 entry, in secret. As their engines were referred to by the "UX" designation, the Wankel Engines were referred to as "URX" engines, to potentially allow for some confusion even if rival teams learned of the engine's existence. In tandem with the URX engine, a completely different group of engineers continued work on the UX8, which powered Octan's S6 entry, and a variant of which, the UX8C, powered National the same season. Then, work began to slow down, as several key people were transferred to the URX project, and as confidence that the URX1 would be ready for Season 7 grew, work on the next UX engine, the UX9, slowed. However, Octan still registered to race, and labelled their engine the "Octan Energy UX9" and National registered to race with their engine designated the "Octan Energy UX9 Variant"

Season 7 and the URX1

As usual, National received their UX9s a month before the start of the season, on the 41st of Suriel, but their engineers were disappointed to find several obvious flaws in it, and to see that there were very few improvements from the UX8. However, they buckled down, and their small group of engineers, led by FL Legend Griffin King, buckled down for a long month of improving their engines. In a bid to be able to challenge Osborne come Race 1 of Season 7, most of National's small Engineering corps slept little and worked lots over that month, to try and reach a place that they were happy with the engine. The first concerns on National's part were raised when their representatives in the UX Workshop at Octan reported that there was nearly no activity involving improving the UX9, and for large portions of the same month that National Engineers weren't sleeping, there were no more than four engineers working at Octan on the same engine. National Team Manager Jenny Spalding raised concerns to her opposite number, Svilar, but was reassured that Octan felt confident about the start of Season 7. The evening of the Zabez 37th, the last before the first practice session of Season 7, Octan tried to quietly update their engine designation on their racing registration, changing it from the "Octan Energy UX9" to the "Octan Energy URX1". However, the Head of the National Team Legal Department, Julio Herceg, who was at the EotLP GP Commission Headquarters in Rennia to finalize their own engine designation (To define it as the "Octan Energy UX9 Variant Y") noticed the presence of Octan personnel, and inquired on their purpose, and was told of their Engine designation change. Herceg requested, and was given, a copy of the Registration Change, and immediately returned to National's Headquarters to report his findings. Alongside Spalding and King, Herceg deciphered the changes described in the submission, and deduced (from engine specifications, as well as certain keywords used on the registry) that the Octan cars intended to run Rotary Engines that they had not sold National for Season 7. Poring over their agreements, Herceg pointed out that, legally, Octan had to sell them the engines with which they were registered to race.

In order to develop their case and make sure they were confident in their concerns and accusations, the three of them all sat out the first race weekend, where Octan's Lily Gasly pressed hard on two-time Champion Kira Sanchez, but ultimately failed to win the race, while Vance Lewison drove a defensive race, holding back several charging drivers, and finishing only P4 in the end, after a penalty was applied to Avayah Osborne, who had originally finished P4. The National engineers, most of whom were still unaware of the URX1's existence at this point, were disheartened greatly at Octan's clear pace advantage over them and expressed so in the afternoon press conferences.

Less than a week later, on the 2nd of Aran, Spalding, King, and Herceg held a press conference, in which they accused Octan of bypassing their sales agreements, and selling them outdated, ineffective engines, while Octan used a revolutionary new concept to be much more competitive. They released several pieces of evidence publicly, and the news story was picked up internationally, where National garnered much sympathy and support. The EotLP GP Commission opened an investigation into the matter almost immediately.

Lucilla Svilar and Elian Lazlo held a counter-press conference two days later, where they claimed that Octan had not violated their contract, since they were only obligated to sell them the latest spec of Engine that they were registered to race with, which was the UX9, and that changing their registration was not out of order by their agreement.

This sort of back-and-forth continued past the next several races, where National found themselves consistently outpaced by both Osborne, and more to the point, Octan. More and more heated press conferences were held every week, until finally, after Race 5, the EotLP GP released a new set of expectations for Press Conferences, which banned any team official discussing how another team had wronged them, or how they had not wronged a different team. These rules were codified into the Sporting Regulations from Season 8 onwards.

The EotLP GP announced, over the Race 6 weekend, that they would be holding a summit with Kai Octan, Elian Lazlo, Lucila Svilar, Jenny Spalding, Griffin King, and the owner of National, the Emperor of the EotLP himself, Emperor James Krennic. Herceg accompanied the National delegation as their lawyer. Two days after Season 7 wrapped up, With National finishing P3 of 3, with 8 points, and Octan P2 with 12 points, the two delegations met. Due to the abuse of power that may have been assumed if the Emperor attended on the side of one team, he sent his apologies and a medical excuse to avoid the meeting. However, he also authorised the summit to be treated as law, and therefore for the statements of any officials from either team to be treated as legally binding. Both National and Octan officials were called upon, after swearing an oath to tell the truth, and presented their angles of the case. Kai Octan maintained that he had not known of the plot, and had worked to discover the existence of it once the first National press release had come out. Svilar and Lazlo repeated that Octan's behaviour broke no laws, or agreements. Finally, the EotLP GP Commissioners convened to make a final decision, and decided that National would be offered full re-imbursement of their purchase not only of the UX9s, but also the Chasses they had been provided by Octan (even though there was no accusation that Octan's Chassis department had misrepresented their intentions to National), and that, should National wish to maintain the sales contract between the two teams, Octan would become legally required to sell them whatever engine spec they raced most of the season with. Jenny Spalding refused the offer, and requested the Sales Contract (which at the time lasted for Formula Lego's first 15 Sesaons) to be terminated legally which, by the power vested in them by the Emperor, the Commissioners did immediately. Spalding then requested legal rights to use any existing Octan IP that they already had purchased without ramifications, which was granted National as well. Svilar attempted to speak as Octan's official representative to respond to the Commissioners legally binding decision, but was prevented by Kai Octan. Instead, he gave a short speech to the Commissioners, as well as the National team, that was widely publicized for a variety of reasons.

"Octan Energy Formula Lego Racing Team accepts the findings of the EotLP GP Commissioners that Team Octan has not violated any laws in their handling of the purchase of equipment and vehicles by National. However, Octan believes that these actions were undertaken with the direct intention of undermining competition, and utilized corporate trust, and a legal loophole to gain an advantage over another team within the same sport. Therefore, Octan Energy Formula Lego Racing Team believes that those who organised, and hid these actions intentionally should be removed from the positions they hold, where they have demonstrated anti-competition behaviour. Therefore, the Octan Team requests the legal permission to remove Lucilla Svilar and Elian Lazlo from their positions with immediate effect, and to ban them from providing service to any Formula Lego team, or Subsidiary of such, or partner of such, for life. A further list of 56 Octan Team Personnel will be removed from Octan Team with immediate effect, and the Octan Team requests that they receive a similar ban for a time span of between five and ten years, based off of their involvement and other factors."

The Commissioners accepted his proposal, and banned those he indicated had been knowingly involved in the Enginegate controversy, before dismissing the officials and observers alike.

Season 8 and the UX9Z9

National continued on through Season 8 with an even more heavily modified version of the UX9, dubbed the UX9Z9, while Octan raced on the URX2. National also used the same chasses as they had the previous year, merely with more upgrades, and were applauded for the work that their small group of engineers did with one-year old body, and a two-year old engine. National finished the season with 4 Constructors points, compared to Octan's 20. Throughout the season, National increased their engineering Budget, and began hiring a large number of engineers, and began building a large engineering division at their headquarters in Rennia. Their Engineering department focused almost soley on the new, Season 9 technical regulations, and believed they had found a highly effective concept for the Season 9 Engine regulations, as well as the Aero regulations.

At the end of Season 8, National very quietly legally severed all relationships they had with Octan, and Herceg registered National Powertrains as an engine supplier for Season 9.

National's UX10

Moving into Season 9, many were interested to see where National went with their powertrains and chasses, and to see how well they recovered. In what was considered a somewhat cocky move by many, National registered to race powered by the "National Powertrains UX10", continuing Octan's previous naming scheme for their engines. However, they did go a different way with their Chasses naming, dubbing it very simply the "NC1", or National Chassis one.

Many saw the UX10's name as a show of confidence from National, and much of the media was prepared to mock them for it when they failed, but, unexpectedly to everyone except National themselves, National didn't fail. In fact, they won. They won two races, and finished high enough every other time to finish the season with 25 points, dead tied for first with Octan. But, on Countback on podiums, National won their first Constructor's Title over Octan, in what was a vindicating way to finish out their season. National Driver Anna Aster also won the Driver's Title over Octan's Lily Gasly. National went on to win the next three Constructor's Titles, and two of the next three Driver's titles, a level of control over almost every race that Octan failed to even come close to.

Fallout

There were several effects of the Enginegate scandal. The first was the Customer Teams Policy, which stated that any team selling parts to another had to provide them with the specification part that they used for the majority of the season, or a newer specification. It also stated that actions taken by a team to directly hurt the technical competitiveness of another team would be treated as a violation of contract.

Octan had to scramble to find new administration after many of them were fired by Kai Octan. Emil Ayers was hired from his position managing an Octan Sportscar team to become Octan's Team Manager, and Malda Broz was promoted from her position within Octan's Technical Structure to the position of Technical Officer, on a two-year contract.