Last Updated on 9 Jun 2022 4:23 pm (UK Time)
At the beginning of the Formula 1 2022 season, the FIA had introduced a new cost cap scheme that would only allow teams to spend £119m throughout the entire season.
Since the rule has been implemented into the sport multiple teams, drivers and team bosses have spoken out about the rule and how the ideology of the rule was positive, and the majority of the people involved in the sport and the fans thought the rule would be good.
However, in hindsight, the rule has caused drama and could potentially decide which order the Championship ends up in.
So far in this season, we have seen Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Williams speak out about the problems of the cost cap. Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes all claim that there is “no way” to keep below the cost cap and multiple teams will be forced to breach it in the season. Whereas Williams has already been a victim of the cost cap and has been fined £25,000 for breaching a rule that was introduced.
The main vocalist in this drama is Red Bull team boss, Christian Horner, who has spoken about the cost cap multiple times saying that the idea is good however it needs to be increased.
During the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, he publically spoke out about the cost cap saying:
“At the time we all agreed to those reductions, nobody could have predicted what was going on in the world and how that is driving inflation in every household globally,”
“We’re seeing it in Formula 1, we’re seeing it with logistics, we’re seeing it with energy costs. That to me is something the FIA need to take into account.
“We’ve still got six months left this year, inflation still looks like it’s rising rather than diminishing, and hopefully the FIA will act shortly.”
Toto Wolf and Mattia Binotto both agreed with Horner and also said that the idea that the smaller teams can spend the same amount as the top teams is good, however, due to circumstances going on within the world the cost cap should be increased for this season and maybe for the foreseeable future until the financial world becomes more stable than it currently is.
Despite a couple of teams struggling, Alpine and Alfa Romeo are in fact strongly against increasing the cost cap and that simply the bigger teams are irresponsible with their spending and how they should’ve anticipated and prepared for the inflation and where the spending of the budget would go to.
Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer said, “Where there’s a will there’s a way and we set a budget cap and we should stick to it.”
After his comments were made, Alfa Romeo’s team boss, Fred Vasseur, commented and said “We are in this situation and sooner or later we will have to stop the development of the car because we will be at the limit of our budget. And I think everybody can do the same
“I think what we do need is clarity, and clarity quickly. Because, quite simply, it’s not right to be held to ransom by a couple of teams that aren’t perhaps effective – because that was never the design of the budget cap.
“The budget cap was there to limit the top teams from a spending frenzy.”
So despite the fact that many of the “top teams” believe that they will struggle to reach the end of the season and could even potentially end up “missing races” as Christian Horner said. Many of the other teams believe that simply the “bigger teams” have done too many developments on the car, or haven’t spent their money wisely enough and didn’t plan where their money would go which Alpine did do and they aren’t complaining about the cost cap.
So with the threat to the FIA that teams could have to miss races just in-order to stay below the cost cap, it gives them the question should they raise how much money the teams should be able to spend this season?
If the FIA decided to increase the cap it would mean the teams who planned it all out at the beginning of the season would heavily be affected and could end up losing performance on other teams around them.
Or if they decided to keep the cost cap the same, it would mean leaving teams to figure their way around the cap and take the measures they would have to in order to not break it and stay below the £119m available, even if it meant for certain teams having to miss a race week which could heavily impact the results of both Championship’s and maybe could change who would end up winning it.
