Brawn confirms imminent budget cap review

Michelle Foster
The start of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Imola April 2022

Max Verstappen leads at the start of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Imola April 2022

In the midst of a cost of living crisis, Ross Brawn said Formula 1 would be discussing the budget cap of $140million at Tuesday’s F1 Commission meeting.

Formula 1 is not exempt from the rising cost-of-living crisis the world is facing at present.

Last month, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called for an “urgent” look at the set $140million teams are permitted to spend under the budget cap.

Citing rampant inflation and higher energy costs that have put a burden on Formula 1 teams, Horner added that even the “air freight just to this event”, which was Bahrain, had gone up dramatically compared to 2021.

F1 managing director Brawn has acknowledged it is something that needs to be discussed, and that it would be at Tuesday’s F1 Commission meeting.

“I think the inflationary increase needs to be reviewed,” he told Motorsport.com. “When these rules were developed, inflation was relatively low and predictable and now it’s high and unpredictable.

“And if you look at the inflation rates that apply to industrial enterprises like an F1 team, you’ve got power, you’ve got raw materials, you’ve got all the things that are proving to be quite expensive at the moment.

“So I think there’s a solution coming on that.”

The Formula 1 drivers and cars all take a place on the grid for a pre-season group photo. Bahrain March 2022.

Even Andreas Seidl, a staunch supporter of the cap, believes something needs to be done.

“Despite being clearly a team that is very keen to make sure we protect the budget cap, I think in special circumstances like we have at the moment you need to be open for common sense dialogue and make required adjustments,” he said.

“And that’s where we stand in this specific discussion at the moment. Especially when unexpected things happen when the season is already ongoing.

“I think it’s more than just common sense that you need to find a solution, how to deal with that.”

However, finding a solution all the teams agree on is not easy.

Already Alfa Romeo have made it known they will say no to increasing the cap this season, but are open to discussing it for 2023.

With Alfa Romeo said to be the only team to have designed a car that met this year’s minimum weight only for the FIA to agree to raise it, team boss Fred Vasseur is perhaps still smarting from that decision.

He says F1 cannot just change the rules because one or two teams are not happy.

“You can’t change the regulations every single weekend because one team wants to spend more on development,” Vasseur told Motorsport.com.

“Or because they are overweight, or because they want to have an extra allowance for this or for this or for this.

 

“There is a rule – the most important thing is to stick to the rule. If the concept of inflation and the calculation of the inflation is not the best one, we can think about it for the future. Why not?

“But we have something in place and everyone agreed when we signed the deal. Now we have to follow the rules.”

 

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