The budget cap of Formula 1 teams entered into force in 2021 set at 145 million dollars, in 2022 it will drop to 140 to finally settle at 135 from 2023 onwards. A limit that cannot go unnoticed by the teams, especially on the eve of a championship that is in some respects revolutionary in terms of technical regulations. Regarding the latter, it was the element that, in the past, could be contained by competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage. However, today, the element that raises the most concerns is above all that inherent to the financial aspect, with the teams forced to comply also due to the strict controls of the FIA, which did not specify in detail the type of sanctions in case of infringements of standards. It is therefore not clear what the legislators’ approach will be if these economic rules are not respected, just as any possible gray areas that could be adopted by the stables to circumvent the budget cap.
In this sense, however, an ‘assist’ to the controllers could have been provided by the former Alpine team principal Marcin Budkowski, who, before leaving his post, had referred to collaborations between associated teams: “The benefits that can be obtained from partnerships, whether they are legal or not – She said – they are huge. If there is a year that these kinds of partnerships can pay off, it is 2022. I don’t know what’s going on in other people’s factories, and I don’t know what level of scrutiny the FIA is putting in place on that. As an independent team, we are obviously not under scrutiny to share anything with our competitors, because it would be against our own interests “. Without giving any name, the Polish engineer could refer to the relationship between Red Bull and AlphaTauri, as well as between Mercedes and Aston Martin, Williams or McLaren, without forgetting Ferrari with Haas. Thanks to these, in fact, the ‘sister’ teams could in fact join forces to experiment with technical solutions without resorting to excessive costs, with possible advantages for both on the track.
It is no coincidence that in terms of budget cap, McLaren owner Zak Brown recently underlined that the fact that the Circus starting grid foresees clear and well-defined collaborations between some top teams and other ‘client’ teams is a problem that ‘spoils‘the natural competition and competition that should exist without relationships of’ dependence ‘that could affect the regular performance of the activity on the track with all the teams at the start on equal terms.
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