Has F1's budget cap prevented mass exodus?

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Has F1's budget cap prevented mass exodus?

Where would the sport be without the cap?

GPFans Staff

Saturday 3 December 2022 14:00

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F1 introduced its first budget cap last year via financial regulations aimed at levelling the playing field alongside the new aerodynamic rules.

With the second season under the cap just completed, has the implementation been a success?

Despite the efforts of the rule makers, Red Bull stormed to both world championships in one of the most dominant displays in F1 history.

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But is that the fault of the budget cap? Assessing the effectiveness of the financial regulations, here is what the GPFans team had to say on the latest Stewards' Room podcast.

Ian Parkes - Editor-in-Chief

"The two biggest examples of whether the budget cap worked or not... number one, as we saw throughout the course of the season, Ferrari ran out of money.

"Aside from the strategic errors they made, the reliability issues they had, at one point during the season, sometime around the summer break, they ran out of money to develop the F1-75 and that was basically the title race over.

"We had Mattia Binotto's comments as to 'well how did Red Bull and Mercedes keep developing their cars, we didn't'.

"The second example is in interviewing Jost Capito at Williams, Fred Vasseur at Alfa Romeo, and Guenther Steiner at Haas at the end of the season. I asked them the question 'Would this team still have a future without the budget cap?'

"All three said no. That gives you some idea as to the crucial nature this cap has had.

"All three teams would be heading out of F1 in the next two or three seasons without the cap because they could just no longer afford to keep playing the games the big boys at the front could afford to play."

Sam Hall - Deputy Editor

"The budget cap is the single biggest rule change, definitely in modern F1 history and possibly in F1 as a whole because it will eventually create this level playing field.

"That doesn't exist yet because you have had teams that have historically been able to spend more so they have a higher platform to start from.

"You are never going to get Williams and Mercedes level in one season, but it is definitely going to shrink these gaps.

"Next year, we will notice Red Bull being pulled back and in '24 even more so because they would have had the effect of the penalty for breaching the budget cap.

"I don't think the impact of the financial regulations can be overstated. No one can overspend now to get all of this advantage.

"I am looking forward to the next two or three seasons to watch the teams close up. We could, in theory, have five or six teams battling for wins depending on the track."

Ewan Gale - F1 Writer

"The importance of the budget cap will be seen the next time we have some form of regulation change.

"The proximity of the budget cap being introduced and the new regulations meant the bigger teams - Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari - had historical advantages when it came to getting a car ready:

"They have better infrastructure, more people to work on stuff than the smaller teams do.

"The further down the budget cap you go, the more all of that converges as well.

"That maybe still helped the bigger teams but there will be convergence as teams figure out what components do work and don't work in these new aerodynamic regulations."

You can listen to the special end-of-season debate right here...