Seidl explained the budget cap overrun in his own way

McLaren brought a significantly improved car to Singapore, although Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo have not been able to fully exploit its potential so far. But team leader Andreas Seidl confirmed that the updates are very serious.

Andreas Seidl: “Thanks to the great work of our engineering department led by James Key, we have not only prepared a series of updates for the Singapore Grand Prix – this can be called a ‘change of concept’ underlying our car.

I hope this will give the right direction to the chassis modernization process for next year – this was our main goal as we worked on these new products. But at the same time, we aim to improve this season so that the rivalry with Alpine (for 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship) continues until the final round of the race in Abu Dhabi.

However, if you remember the pace our cars were capable of during practice, we have to admit that the difficulties still exist. But I hope the work we did yesterday will help us improve.”

Seidl also commented in his own way on the situation with possible violations of financial regulations, which is being actively discussed in the paddock: “We have no facts or evidence that violations have actually occurred, so I just want to comment from a more general point of view.

In the last year and a half we have also gone through the FIA ​​audit procedure, which has been carried out very carefully and conscientiously, and I am fully convinced that the amount of any costs can be determined quite correctly, and the federation has the opportunity to make comparisons between different organizations. I don’t doubt this.

It is important that the principle of transparency is now fully respected, because it is clear that if someone spends more money and goes over budget, they get a speed advantage.

Our team had to take very serious measures after the transition to limited budgets, which affected our employees, to whom we are responsible. We also had to cut staff, ask people to agree to lower salaries or agree to keep payments at the same level. All this is very serious.

But at the same time, the two teams have been and continue to be very aggressive in hiring new employees, with incredibly high salaries and very attractive company bonuses. We all wonder how this is possible in the new reality in which Formula 1 now lives. Of course our people ask us questions, are we doing everything right?

Therefore, it can only be welcome to bring clarity to this whole story. If in the end it turns out that we missed something, or that there were indeed some violations, we get a clear explanation of why certain teams have been able to take steps that we could not afford.

After all, financial rules are no less important than sporting or technical ones. There is no difference. It is very important that the FIA ​​closely monitors compliance and imposes appropriate sanctions for any violations, even if this could lead to a revision of the results of previous championships.