Former FIA president Max Mosley has argued the case for a budget cap in Formula 1.
The long-time head of motorsport’s governing body became an advocate for reducing costs in F1, with the attraction of a $40m limit to be put in place for 2010 attracting three teams to the grid.
While that idea would later be scrapped after opposition by Ferrari, it has been picked up by Liberty Media, who hope to include some kind of cap in the new regulations in 2021.
“Where is the appeal to succeed just because you spend more money than others?” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport. “It should also be in their interest to say: ‘Our engineers are better than the others’.”
“As advanced as they [leading F1 teams] are with their technology, they are so conservative about changing the system,” he continued. “They just do not want to change anything.
“The big money teams don’t want to give up their advantage over the teams with less money in particular. If you employ three times as many people, it’s like racing with an engine with greater displacement.
“These teams will never agree to a budget cap.”
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The battle that has emerged between the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari – who spent over 400m Euros last year – and Liberty only highlights Mosley’s point with F1 bosses wanting to introduce a $135m limit according to latest reports.
As a result, the former FIA president explained how he would approach the current situation.
“If I were a dictator, which I never was in my time, then I would suggest the following,” he began.
“We’d take the FOM money and distribute it in equal portions to the ten teams. That’s just $60 million per team, just to name a number.
“Exactly this sum could be spent by the individual teams for the season, with everything included, even driver salaries. The sponsorship money that the teams take would be their profit.
“That would mean that a team like Ferrari would be immensely profitable. It would also be a good system for car manufacturers.”
Mosley concluded by arguing how the current financial structure in F1 also does very little to benefit the sport.
“If they were to paint the Formula 2 cars in the colours of F1 teams, no one on the grandstand or on the television screen would notice any difference to what they are seeing now,” he claimed.
“The big money is spent behind the scenes. No one can see how the teams build their gearbox and what the effort is. It has zero impact on the spectacle on the racetrack.
“What would happen with such a model [as mentioned]? The teams would be worth a lot. They would either stay in business or sell to people with a lot of money. They would then have a good starting base.”