Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has warned that some teams may miss the final few races of the 2022 F1 season due to the budget cap.
This comes as last year the FIA set a budget cap of $145 million (£116 million), which was reduced to $140 million (£111 million) this season and will be further reduced next year though inflation will be factored in as the sport attempts to level the playing field between smaller teams and those with double or even triple the budgets.
The budget cap, however, was set prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, and the F1 teams had already planned their finances far ahead of the current season. Their budget has now been complicated by the fact that inflation has jumped to about 10% this year, implying that costs have grown far faster than planned.
Furthermore, energy costs have more than doubled, and freight expenses have quadrupled since the outbreak, with rates quadrupling and according to Horner, some, if not all, teams will run out of money before the end of the season, forcing them to miss races.
“Seven of the teams would probably need to miss the last four races to come within the cap this year,’ he said to BBC Sport.
“It’s not just about the big teams. It’s teams in the middle of the field who are really struggling with inflationary issues.”
According to Horner, the FIA must address the issue by either lifting the budget cap in light of rising costs or providing further assistance.
“The FIA has a duty of care. I know they are taking it seriously,” Horner said. “Energy bills, costs of living, costs are going exponentially, and F1 is not exempt. Freight has quadrupled and that’s not something we can control.”
However, not all teams agree with Horner’s viewpoint, with smaller teams – some of which are already operating under the budget cap – saying that teams at risk should reduce their development spending to compensate.
“We’ve set our budgets early, we kind of anticipated a little bit of the inflation,” Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer said. “Inflation didn’t just creep up on us.”
“If we can do it, for sure others can do it too. I’m not for just increasing the cap.”
Formula One officials are looking into the matter since the supplies teams must pay for are more expensive than expected. F1’s managing director, Ross Brawn, claims that a solution is on the way.
“I think the inflationary increase needs to be reviewed,” Brawn said to motorsport.com. “Because when these rules were developed, inflation was relatively low and predictable, and now it’s high and unpredictable.
“And if you look at the inflation rates that apply to industrial enterprises, like an F1 team, you’ve got power, you’ve got raw materials, you got all the things which are proving to be quite expensive at the moment.”
“So I think there’s a solution coming on that.”
