Sauber Hopes European Union Complaint Will Make Formula 1 ‘Equitable’

Monisha Kaltenborn

Swiss F1 team Sauber hopes its recently filed complaint with the EU competitions commission will put the series on a fairer footing, according to the team's principal. Sauber, together with Force India, filed the complaint in September, arguing that the way F1 distributes its revenues and sets its rules are both "unfair" and "unlawful."

The intent is for the commission to look into those areas and investigate why preferential treatments have been given to certain teams, said Monisha Kaltenborn, team principal of Sauber. In the current structure there is a group of teams that "effectively" decides the rules and knows them before everyone else, Kaltenborn added. This competitive advantage of knowing the rules ahead of time is reflected on the track, which in turn has an impact on the distribution of prize money by Formula One Management.

"All this is really connected," she said. "So if you go to the bottom of all this, it's the rules." Simplifying the rules to provide more consistency and a certain level of stability over a longer period of time could solve many problems within F1, according to Kaltenborn. "We are not saying everything has to be equal, but it has to be equitable."

DIFFERENT VIEWS: Other F1 teams have questioned Sauber and Force India's move of bringing the issue to the EU commission. Triple world champion and Mercedes Non-Exec Chair Niki Lauda attacked Sauber in an interview with Swiss weekly Handelszeitung, saying the team "should fight first against their own inabilities."

Williams told SBD Global during the Mexican Grand Prix that it wants no part of the complaint. "We have a contract with FOM to compete in Formula 1, and we know the regulations around that," said Claire Williams, deputy team principal at Williams F1. "We signed up to it and we agreed to it." The EU has not yet given a timeline for when it will make a decision regarding the complaint.

DIFFERENT TIMES: Kaltenborn referenced the time from '06-09 when an increased number of manufacturers like BMW and Toyota participated in the sport, but teams still managed to put a resource restriction agreement in place.

"That was a different way of looking at things," she said. In today's F1 there is simply is no consensus among teams. On the technical side, things were done that everyone knew would be forbidden the next year, such as the double diffuser, but everyone had to do them to stay competitive.

"[Those were] absolute failures in regards to investment," Kaltenborn said. "Because there's no roadmap, there's no route that gives you foreseeability and stability for the future." She added the teams that are not at all interested in cutting costs do not realize that "we are all" in this together. "It can't be your agenda to kick out other teams," she said. "Diversity is so important for the competition, that's what the people like out there." HJ Mail/SportsbusinessJournal.com