For a few months, several teams have acknowledged that they are struggling to stay below the budget limit of 140 million dollars (about 124 million euros) established for this season.
Teams such as Ferrari and McLaren have already publicly admitted that they are very close to breaking the cost limit for this season, because expenses have skyrocketed and they desperately need to reach an agreement that will help them alleviate their situation.
Although the leaders of Formula 1 and the FIA are looking for a solution suitable for all parties, not all teams are in favor of a change, especially the smaller ones that do not even have the purchasing power to approach said budget limit. .
This has pushed the situation to the brink and has forced some teams to hold back on their upgrades for fear of spending more than planned in order not to break the rules later in the year.
Horner is one of the team managers most concerned about this issue and believes that if no agreement is reached to ease the budget cap issues, the only way teams will be able to stay within the rules is by firing or forcing a pay cut on staff.
“We’ve had to readjust everything,” the Red Bull man said of the impact of the budget cap. “I think the biggest problem is the uncertainty that there is with a cap like that and because of the rate of inflation that we’re seeing.”
“I think it would be a catastrophe for Formula 1 if the staff had to take the damage of something that is out of their control. I think it’s a moral issue that needs to be dealt with.”
“I know the FIA is looking into it, along with Liberty, because no one expected such inflation.”
Christian Horner also believes that the current budget cap issue is more than just a crisis affecting only the top teams ( Red Bull and Ferrari ).
“Perhaps I am the one who is talking about it the most, but our problems are not the biggest in this aspect,” he said. “I think Mercedes has more employees and higher salaries than us. Ferrari is obviously another team with very high expenses.
“When you hear that some teams in the middle of the grid are also going to breach the spending cap and that they were pushing for this cap to be lower at the beginning, I think it shows [that it’s not just our problem].”
“And it’s not that development is the biggest of our expenses; it’s simply about the fixed costs of each race in transport, energy, public services and the supply of components. They have become stratospheric,” concluded the team’s Austrian.
