Formula 1 teams have been given a small increase in the budget cap for this season amid ballooning inflation.
The issue has been bubbling away for months with Red Bull boss Christian Horner warning back in May that teams could miss races if the original $140m limit for 2022 wasn’t raised.
Later, Horner also suggested the championship could end up being decided in an FIA court if leading teams were penalised for exceeding the cap and claimed the only option would be mass staff redundancies.
“The problem with the uncertainty over the cap, with the rate of inflation we are seeing, there is only parts and people that are really the biggest cost drivers,” he explained.
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“It would be a catastrophe for Formula 1 that people would have to take a hit for something that is beyond their control.
“There is a moral issue that needs to be dealt with and I know the FIA are looking at it together with the Liberty [Media] guys.”
Several other teams have also voiced concerns, with McLaren stopping all development of their 2022 car due to financial regulations.
Despite the calls, those teams not at risk of going over the cap remained firmly against any rise, believing it was a tactic by the bigger teams to keep a competitive advantage.
But the Red Bull boss rubbished that argument.
“Nobody could have expected this kind of inflation,” he said. “Perhaps I am the one who speaks out about it the most but our problems are not the biggest in this area.
“I think Mercedes employ more people and have higher salaries within their group than ourselves. Ferrari is again another big team with high costs.
“When you hear of teams in the midfield that are also going to be in breach of the cap that were pushing for the cap to be lower originally, it shows it is not about development being the biggest contributor to these costs.
“It is just the fixed costs of going racing, with freight, energies, the supply of components which have just gone stratospheric.”
Finally, in an F1 Commission meeting on Friday in Austria, there was enough support to trigger a 3.1% increase already set out in the regulations for 2022 and permitted compounding of the rate for 2023.
While well believe the 9% inflation level seen in the UK for example, the 3.1% increase translates into a $4.3m increase in monetary value for 2022, almost taking the cap back to the $145m limit it was in 2021.
Commenting on the proposal, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports: “The regulations say that, if inflation is above 3%, then we will adjust [the cap] accordingly.
“We had a time lag, so it’s a bit complicated to explain, but we got 3% on top, which should cover a little bit of the inflation, but not the freight and energy costs.”
