F1 budget cap should have included driver salaries - McLaren CEO Zak Brown

Formula 1

F1 budget cap should have included driver salaries - McLaren CEO Brown

Formula 1's new budget cap currently excludes driver salaries from the expenses

Ewan Gale

Wednesday 3 February 2021 09:27 Updated: 12:08

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed he would have made driver salaries a part of the new Formula 1 budget cap after the idea of a separate salary cap was floated.

Teams will have to work within a $145million boundary for this season, although this figure excludes driver salaries plus the additional three highest earners, as well as a host of other add-ons.

With a separate $30m cap now being suggested for driver salaries in order to create an even more sustainable financial environment, Brown indicated he would have liked to have seen the two caps combined.

“I think all the team bosses supported putting in a driver salary cap," he said. "I think you have that in the majority of other sports around the world.

"I think Formula 1 needed to, and is changing, its financial profile to make these racing teams sustainable.

“I thought that the drivers should have gone into the [budget] cap in the first place.

“I think there are two different ways to look at it. You can do what has now been proposed and have a $30m cap and decide how you want to spend that amongst your two drivers.

“Another area I would actually have liked to have seen was to have put the drivers into the initial salary cap, whatever that salary cap is I think you would raise it, and then give the team flexibility on how do you want to spend your money."

Some drivers are believed to have contracts stipulating a higher payment than the proposed salary cap would allow.

For this reason, Brown added the cap would likely be implemented mid-decade to ensure current agreements could be fulfilled without either teams or drivers being disadvantaged.

“I think it will be introduced in the next few years," he added. "I think you do need to recognise that some drivers are already under a contract in the short-term that are over that budget.

"You need to announce what you are doing sooner rather than later and have it be far enough out that no-one is in a situation where you have announced something but you are actually sitting on a contract that can’t be executed or unduly penalises a team because they have got a driver combination that is north of that. “So I think you have got to announce it soon but do it in three, four years' time to where you have a chance to cycle through all the existing agreements.”