SK Exclusive: “It was never designed to be a communist form of racing” - Red Bull feels smaller teams are being ‘opportunistic’ with the F1 budget cap

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner claimed that the F1 budget caps are not just affecting the front runners but also the smaller teams. Speaking to Sportskeeda at the 2022 F1 Azerbaijan GP weekend, the Briton felt inflation and events around the globe have affected the budget cap model, which was initially designed to prohibit bigger teams from overspending.

Clarifying his previous quote about several teams missing races if the budget caps weren’t revised, Horner said:

“Since we misconstrued that I said we will be missing races, cause that’s not exactly what I said. What I said is that such is the pressure on the cap that effectively for probably 4 or 5 teams to hit that cap, they would have to do the equivalent of miss events, which there are many costs that when the budget cap, you know, was brought in the debts of shutdown and COVID when we were all working remotely, we reduced it by $35 million. And at that point, nobody could have expected double-digit inflation and the world events that, you know, we are currently experiencing. So the budget cap was always there to stop a spending frenzy of the better-financed teams. It was never designed to be a communist form of racing.”

The current rise in logistical costs due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its double impact on an already inflated British and European economy has made the operation of teams within the cost caps an arduous affair.

The Red Bull team chief was previously quoted suggesting that several teams might miss events if the cost caps were not revised. Clarifying his comments, he explained that the pressure to reduce costs due to budget caps given the inflation in operational costs and logistics is equivalent to missing a few events for some teams. Horner explained that although F1 was able to reduce the cost cap by $35 million due to the pandemic, it is not enough in the current scenarios, making it critical to revise the same.

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Red Bull believes smaller teams complaining about revising budget caps is inevitable

While bigger teams such as Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes are appealing to the sport and its regulatory body to review budget caps, these appeals have met resistance from smaller teams such as Alpine, Haas, and Alfa Romeo. The latter teams have been vocal on the subject of budget caps, saying that they are comfortable operating within the given limit. Suggesting they have more to gain from it, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes their complaints are inevitable.

Upon being asked about the resistance shown by the smaller teams towards the revision of budget caps, the Red Bull team boss replied:

“I think that inevitably little teams will be opportunistic, they always have been. Because they want something from it, but of course that comes down to governance, that we have the voting structure there is at the moment for in-season change doesn’t deal with the real problem we have today. And I think obviously the FIA are looking at it but it’s a real issue, it’s an issue that was totally unforeseeable, it’s an issue that’s affecting not just the teams at the front of the field, but the majority of the midfield as well now.”

Given the economic meltdown globally and the pandemic conditions, budget caps were introduced as a measure to stop the well-funded teams from overspending and to level the playing field to a certain extent when it comes to the development of their cars. Following speculation that the top-3 teams had spent the majority of their budget on developing their current cars, it was rumored that they were using inflation as an excuse to revise the budget cap. It is, however, an ongoing topic that will definitely continue until summer break.