Guenther Steiner: No reason not to include driver salaries in budget cap

Formula 1

No reason not to include driver salaries in budget cap - Steiner

Removing the salary performance 'differentiator' would be positive for F1

Ian Parkes & Sam Hall

Saturday 11 July 2020 08:53

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner sees no reason why driver salaries could not be incorporated into the Formula 1 budget cap in future years.

The F1 spending regulations that will be introduced in 2021 do not include the wages of either the drivers or the three highest members of team personnel.

The Haas boss, however, feels these exemptions should be evaluated in future years, suggesting a separate salary cap could be introduced.

Article continues under video

"I have nothing against a driver cap or a driver salary cap, whatever you want to call it. I don’t see a problem for us in it because we are so far off it, whatever it will be," said Steiner.

"I’m not pushing it or anything but I think at some stage it will be a good idea to put it in the budget cap, because it’s a performance differentiator.

"For sure, if you spend a lot of money on a driver then you cannot do other things. That should level the playing field even more and I think the salaries would adjust by themselves and they would end up lower than they are now."

Although Steiner is unlikely to find support for this idea from the top teams, his comments are similar to those of driver Romain Grosjean, the Frenchman calling the pay gap between drivers "unacceptable".

Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams was firmly in agreement with Steiner as she said: "Drivers are performance differentiators, and in order to get a much more equitable playing field in this sport, as the financial regulations are there to do, then I think it’s absolutely critical that anyone who is performance-related should be part of that cost cap."

As to the prospect drivers may be deterred from entering F1 if there was a salary cap, Williams added: "I think the likelihood of drivers being discouraged from participating in our sport would probably be minimal, just simply because this is the highest echelon of motorsport and it’s a destination where drivers want to be racing."

Before you go...

"One-year-old Mercedes" has finally showed its true potential - McLaren

Mercedes to investigate unhappy Hamilton's pace woes