F1 teams must break "bad habit" of money spending - Zak Brown

Lewis Hamilton makes a bad start in sprint race at Monza — Photo: © LAT Images

Formula 1

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F1 teams must break "bad habit" of money spending - Brown

F1 is yet to formalise sprint plans for 2022

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Saturday 12 February 2022 16:30

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has warned F1 teams they must "break their bad habit" of trying to spend more money.

F1's plan to run six sprint events hangs in the balance with teams pushing back over the lack of increased funds available within the budget cap for the extra 100km 'races'.

The suggestion is that there will be a compromise of three sprint events rather than the six with no increase to the budget cap but speaking at the launch of the McLaren MCL36 and ahead of the upcoming FIA Commission meeting, Brown revealed: "We ultimately don't know what the final number will be.

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"It's going to be discussed next week at the FIA Commission. I think as it's been reported and discussed probably going to be more in the three range.

"From the data that was provided to us by Formula 1 late last year, it showed that the sprint races did drive incremental viewership, so from that standpoint, it was definitely considered a success.

"They then put forward doing more races and unfortunately, some of the teams still need to break their bad habit of looking for every opportunity to spend more money.

"So that created a problem late last year around the governance and voting that we need to go through to see what they proposed, or adopted."

It was initially hoped that the first race in Bahrain would play host to the first of the originally planned six sprint events but with time running out to finalise plans, Brown insists a balance still needs to be struck.

"I think Formula 1 is taking a step back and going to come to us with a new proposal that will hopefully go through," he added.

"But it does point to the larger issue of, I still think, we don't have the right balance.

"This also then ties to meetings of when things need to go put forward and get voted on and what's in the best interests of the sport. We still at times have too many conflicts of interest that get in the way."