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Brawn reveals "soft" budget cap for 2019

Published on 23 Aug 2018 09:44
6
By: Fergal Walsh

Formula 1 will introduce a "soft" budget cap for the 2019 season, F1's managing director Ross Brawn has revealed. The cap will see a minor change to how much the top teams will spend, before it is upped for the 2020 season.

F1 is planning on introducing a full budget cap for the 2021 season to allow lower down teams to develop their cars further and make gains on the race-winning outfits. With the pace gap seemingly ever-growing between the top three teams and the rest of the field, and Force India's recent financial scare, Brawn says that the sport has to act straight away.

"We want the grandees to still be the big names in the sport, we don’t want a system or a situation where there aren’t big targets to aim at," the Briton said. "And at the moment, those targets are Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.

"However, the void between those three teams and the rest of the field is too big. There are two divisions in Formula 1, and we want to stop that, we want to introduce constraints on the amount of resource you can use. And doing that involves both an economic perspective and a technical perspective.

"On the economic side we’re pushing through cost control initiatives. We only have to look at the situation Force India finds itself in to understand how crucial this is. The financial burden on teams is not sustainable in the long term and we are taking steps to put a limit on how much a team can spend."

Brawn explained how the budget cap for next year will work, saying that it will only be minor adjustments for the top teams: "The ceiling won’t be achievable for all teams, but it will reduce the differential between the teams that are at that limit and those that aren’t," he stated.

"At the moment I think a top team spends twice what a midfield team spends and if we reduce that margin to around 10 or 20 per cent, then there is something for the midfield teams to aspire to. There will still be an aura around the big teams, but a midfield team doing a great job will be able to compete.

"The good news is that with the FIA and in consultation with the teams we are progressing well on the economic initiatives. Work on the mechanism of a cost cap is going well. At the moment we are looking to introduce it in a soft form, with dry runs in 2019, and 2020 and then it will be become regulatory in ’21. I would say that barring some last-minute discussions that’s pretty much finalised now."

Formula 1 is in for a major overhaul in 2021 with a host of new regulations set to come into play. However, the planned budget cap, which is expected to be arranged at $150 million, may provide mid-field teams the chance of closing in on the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari.

Fergal Walsh

F1 News Ferrari Mercedes Force India

Replies (6)

talktohenry

Posts: 362
Max Mosley told us all so years ago and they sacked him and waited for a crisis to change - Max was right all along in just about everything he said, do we wait for Williams to go before we tackle this silly situation where a teams spends hundreds of millions on two race cars, we not sending rockets to space here. We need a cost structure where independents can afford come in - like Jordan did in 1991.
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- Aug 23 2018 - 12:40
calle.itw

Posts: 8,527
This is a good move.
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- Aug 23 2018 - 18:44
kngrthr

Posts: 203
but please explain how the lower teams can develop anything with no testing and only three engines ??
the CFD and other simulator type development requires getting the very top people in the field and only the top teams will afford and attract these people
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- Aug 24 2018 - 00:31
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  But so do wind tunnels? I think CFD will be cheaper and more efficient long term compared to wind tunnels. But yes, increase the amount of allocations. Current regs are bullshit in that regard, both in terms of racing quality over a season (I've been legit surprised that it hasnt been a shitshow this year in that regard) and in terms of fairness to the smaller teams.
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  Aug 24 2018 - 16:37
RogerF1

Posts: 501
By soft cap are we to believe the top teams will actually be losing hundreds of jobs each next year, can’t see it personally or they just tel those workers “don’t tell anybody you work here”? I’m all for it but can’t see how it will be accepted.
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- Aug 24 2018 - 08:13
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Only if the top teams do it to themselves. Not all of that cash is dedicated to staff. I think alot more can be done to narrowed without them losing staff... At least if Ferrari and Merc' will so. But its probably also why in part that this is a soft cap and not a hard cap.
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  Aug 24 2018 - 16:36