F1: If budget caps not increased teams will miss races – Horner (Update)

(GMM) Smaller teams are continuing to resist efforts to ramp up the budget cap as a response to inflation.

The $140 million budget cap has also become an issue in recent weeks as Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto expressed concerns about Red Bull’s rate of car development.

“It is no longer possible to bring new parts to every race,” he said.

“At the pace of development that we are now seeing, many teams will soon reach the limits of the cost cap.”

A source told Auto Motor und Sport: “If everyone is honest, there can be no further development after the Canadian GP.”

An unnamed team boss added: “We’d have to lay off 50 people.”

Red Bull has dismissed the accusation of questionable spending on car updates, but team boss Christian Horner is now warning that it is in fact spiraling inflation that is the big problem for teams.

“Some teams won’t be able to do the last races of the season,” he is quoted as saying by Auto Motor und Sport.

Alfa Romeo boss Frederic Vasseur, however, says it’s nonsense to insist that inflation is akin to “force majeure” as an excuse for raising the budget cap.

“Inflation has nothing to do with force majeure,” he said. “The pandemic was force majeure. Inflation is a normal process.

“The teams that don’t have much room for improvement can react to it very easily – just shut down their wind tunnel and build fewer parts.

“If we give up on the rules now, that would be the end of the budget cap.”

Aston Martin’s Otmar Szafnauer agrees: “If we can do it, the others have to do it too.”

Below, see our proposed solution to this issue, the mental midgets created without careful thought.

Formula 1 teams will be forced to miss races this season unless the sport’s budget cap is increased, says Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.

The current budget limit is $140m.

“Seven of the teams would probably need to miss the last four races to come within the cap this year,” he said.

“It’s not just about the big teams. It’s teams in the middle of the field who are really struggling with inflationary issues.”

Horner added: “The FIA needs to address this issue, it has a duty of care. I know they are taking it seriously.

“Energy bills, costs of living, costs are going exponentially, and F1 is not exempt. Freight has quadrupled and that’s not something we can control.”

Horner’s position is backed by title rivals Ferrari, world champions Mercedes and McLaren.

But the Alfa Romeo, Alpine, Haas and Williams teams all voted against an increase.

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer said: “We’ve set our budgets early, we kind of anticipated a little bit of the inflation. Inflation didn’t just creep up on us. If we can do it, for sure others can do it too. I’m not for just increasing the cap.

“When freight costs go up by 2.5m or 3.5m, but your development budget is 20m, can you not make your development budget 17m and still be under the cap? You can.

“What that then does is it limits your development. So it’s a lot easier, if you have the money, to go to the FIA and lobby to raise the cap and keep your development budget the same.”

An Aston Martin spokesperson said: “We support a budget cap increase in line with inflation but do not see the need for an increase greater than that.”

A spokesman said that the FIA was looking into the issue on an ongoing basis. More at BBC/Andrew Benson

Solution to Mental Midget Dilemma

When the mental midgets developed the budget guidelines, they failed to take into account how much money is at stake if you win the constructors and driver’s title.

Also, teams are flush with money now that F1’s popularity and TV ratings are up, which was not accounted for when the caps were set.

Teams should be allowed to exceed the budget, but pay a monetary penalty that would be equally distributed to all the other teams and a corresponding increase in their budget caps.

This would allow teams like Ferrari and Red Bull, who are in a development war at the front, to exceed their budget cap, but to then compensate the other teams accordingly, so everyone is happy, and the sport can stay at the cutting edge.

Having teams miss races would be a serious black eye on the sport.