Alpine F1 boss Otmar Szafnauer believes rivals can get around the budget constraints through research and development work carried out outside the team.
Otmar Szafnauer: “If there are 68-70 people in the race team, and the other 900 are not in it and are not included in the budget constraints, then we have something to worry about.
If you come up with a great idea while working on another project that could be used in Formula 1, it’s just an idea. But maybe there are other solutions. If you have invested heavily in the development of a tool for a yacht, for example, and then use it in Formula 1, it becomes difficult to get that under control.
It seems that more and more teams are willing to take highly paid workers out of the state. The time has come when all these side businesses that are springing up around teams that wouldn’t exist without budget constraints need to be taken into account when overseeing financial regulatory compliance.
The idea of a budget cap has helped a lot in Formula 1. I think the limit that is now set is still 10 times what the teams spend in other series. I think this is more than enough. But we have to be careful that there are no loopholes in the law that we cannot close, because then the budget ceiling effectively expires.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
