Landmark F1 rule change branded a FAILURE by former team chief

Szafnauer, F1, Alpine, 2023, generic — Photo: © IMAGO

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Landmark F1 rule change branded a FAILURE by former team chief

The former team boss believes the cost cap has caused a divide between teams

Tyler Rowlinson

Tuesday 30 April 2024 23:00

Former Formula 1 team boss Otmar Szafnauer has slammed the cost cap measures in the sport for creating a divided grid.

First introduced to the sport in 2021, the cost cap measures limited the teams on the grid to a spending budget of $145 million, with the aim of bringing the grid closer together.

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While the teams at the front and the back are closer than ever before, the 2024 season has seen an interesting split.

Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin have emerged as the top five teams and look to have broken away from the rest of the field as they look set to lock out most of the points this season.

The cost cap limits teams to $145 million

The top five teams have pulled away from the others

Szafnauer highlights cost cap 'inequities'

Asked why he thinks the grid has split, the American responded: “There's a couple of areas I can think of.

“One, which I experienced, is there are some teams that have done a better job at cost cap structure. They can spend $10-15 million more than some others, and you have to remember this is at the margin of performance.

Otmar Szafnauer was team principal at Alpine and Aston Martin

“Say that $15 million more that you've got, because of the way you organised yourself, you can buy more talent, or you can do other experiments that the other guys cannot do.

“Plus, although there's an OpEx (Operating Expenditure) and a CapEx (Capital Expenditure) cost cap, I think on the CapEx side, we inadvertently froze some inequities.

“There are some tools that the bigger teams have, and that the little ones are now trying to catch up and gain. And it takes time, because it was like $36 million over four years or something.

“I remember we faced this at Alpine. We couldn't buy what we wanted to buy, we had to do it over time. And the big teams, when they knew the cost cap was coming, because they had the money, they just bought all the stuff [there and then].”

Red Bull Ferrari Mercedes Formula 1 McLaren Aston Martin