Christian Horner is the team principal[Red Bull] of one of the big teams in F1 and is unsurprisingly not so satisfied with the F1’s budget cap regulations.
The sport introduced the budget cap in the 2021 season with the intention to bring the racing to a level playing field between all the teams.
For the 2021 season, the budget cap was set at $145 Million. The plan was to further reduce $5 Million each season with the cost cap in 2022 being set at $140 Million.
However, this was tweaked midway through the season due to soaring global inflation giving the teams an extra $4.3 Million to spend.
Under current rules, smaller teams have a say in the decision making which sometimes affects the big teams. They also have more power to shoot down rules from top teams.
Horner, who bosses a $640 Million team, thinks that this is something that the FIA and the promoters need to look at.
Season’s greetings to all our followers, we hope you have an enjoyable and restful festive period.
We hope that you enjoy gifts as good as those we have given to Austrian energy drinks companies that run F1 teams and their employees.
Just don’t go over your budget/cost cap.
— FIA (@FIAclowns) December 24, 2022
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“Little teams have too great a voice” – Christian Horner
Discussing budget cap and its implications on the sport, the Red Bull team boss said that the little teams have big say on significant rules that can affect the big teams and have no impact on themselves.
He believes that the FIA and the promoters should look into it. Horner also explained some ways in which the cost cap rules need to be changed.
The Briton presented a simplistic argument about how important technology partnerships are in F1. But as certain technology comes under the budget cap, the teams have to turn it down in order to prevent themselves from breaching the budget cap.
Red Bull breached the budget cap
Red Bull became the only F1 team in the 2022 season that exceeded the 2021 budget cap of $145 Million. The team was given a massive fine and a 10% reduction in aerodynamic testing time.
However, the FIA said that there was no evidence that the team sought at any time to act in bad faith.
Horner said that there are some grey areas in the budget cap rules that led to the breaching situation. He believes that surely these rules will evolve going ahead.
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