Sergio Perez backs James Vowles with warning over Formula 1 cost cap

Sergio Perez agrees with James Vowles that Formula 1’s budget cap is hindering, not helping, the sport’s smaller teams.

Formula 1’s cost cap was established with the goal of long-term financial sustainability, as well as sporting equality across the grid.

Sergio Perez explains why Formula 1’s cost cap hurts smaller teams

But it may actually be having the opposite effect.

While a team such as Ferrari has introduced two massive upgrades along with various updates, either performance-related or circuit-specific, almost week in and week out, new parts have been fewer and further between for the sport’s smaller teams.

Although Cadillac, Formula 1’s newest team, brought an extensive set of upgrades to the Miami Grand Prix and again to Austria, it by no means matches Ferrari’s level.

The Scuderia has appeared on the FIA’s submission list at most of this year’s races, while Cadillac’s updates have been sparser.

And according to Perez, the team’s upgrade programme is done for this season.

That, he says, is because while the budget cap limits all the teams to spending the same amount, the sport’s smaller teams pay more for their parts as their processes are not as refined as F1’s bigger teams.

“No,” he told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media when asked if Cadillac had more upgrades planned for this season. “We are obviously a new team and a small team.

“I think the cost cap these days is a lot more unfair for smaller teams because when I was at Red Bull, for example, we used to bring upgrades pretty much every weekend.

“You never heard anything about the cost cap. It was all about performance, bringing and throwing everything you could.

“But when you are in smaller teams, because they’re not as efficient and they don’t have their methods as clear, you end up overspending so much more money.

“So actually, the cost cap, instead of making it closer between teams, creates these massive gaps that we currently have on the grid.”

Perez’s comments come after Williams team principal James Vowles described the cost cap as a “trap” for smaller teams.

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According to the Briton, the financial burden of having outdated facilities not only impacts capital expenditure, but the inefficiency in the processes leads to increased manufacturing costs.

He estimated that Williams spends 30 per cent more than a “top teams” per part for their car.

“In terms of sporting equity, we’re not there,” insisted the Williams team boss.

“What we have locked in is whatever you invested seven years ago, and that is now really, really hurting. The other one is competitive advantage; the field should be compressing, but it isn’t.

“You don’t have to use my stats. You can go and look it all up.

“There were fewer points scored now by the bottom five or six teams, depending on how you count it. The top four is scoring more in cost cap than they were before.

“You used to have someone that’s not on the top four team on the podium before cost cap 10 per cent of the time. Now it’s 5 per cent of the time. It doesn’t matter what stat you choose, you will find we have made it worse. Why have we made it worse?”

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