Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost has put the blame firmly on the manufacturers for creating what he described as a “two-class society” in Formula 1.
Since the introduction of the current engine rules in 2014, Mercedes and Ferrari have slowly pulled away from the rest of the field with Red Bull the only team capable of competing on certain types of circuit.
The remaining seven teams have barely had a look in with only Lance Stroll, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas scoring podiums for a non-top three team since the start of 2016.
Liberty Media has made addressing this imbalance one of their main goals in 2021 with new regulations, including a budget cap one solution likely to be introduced.
It was revealed in recent weeks that Mercedes spent over $300m in 2017 in another championship winning year while Ferrari has also had figures around $250m mentioned previously.
“When the teams were private teams we didn’t need it [a budget cap], because private teams never spend so much money,” Tost commented in an interview with Motorsport.com.
“The reason why the costs in F1 increased so dramatically is because of the manufacturers.
“The FIA and FOM must find the way to come down with the costs because otherwise we have a two class society in F1: the manufacturer teams and the rest. This is what happens now.”
The predictable nature of the current pecking order is something else that has been talked about this year and Tost suggests the battle at the front is glossing over the problems caused by the current inequality between the teams.
“Fortunately this year and also last year [Sebastian] Vettel is fighting against [Lewis] Hamilton for the championship because otherwise people would not watch any more F1 because it is boring,” he added.
“And there we must be aware about this and what we have to achieve is that minimum three or four drivers and five or six teams are fighting for the championship, and the championship is decided in the last race and not a couple of races before.”
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One of the arguments long mentioned about a budget cap is how to ensure no team exceeds the designated figure, the Toro Rosso chief played down those claims, however.
“I think it is doable,” said the Austrian. “There were always arguments that you cannot control it, which is nonsense. You can control everything. The FIA, and FOM, whoever, just have to start from the very beginning onwards about how to control it.
“If I would decide, I would send to every team a person to control all the financial statements every week or every month. That’s it.
“Like now, for example, on the technical side you can control everything, yeah? We are even not allowed to test without passing crash tests and all this kind of stuff.
“So why shouldn’t you be able to control [budgets]? This is nonsense, you can control everything if you want.”
