Formula 1 must find a way to adjust the budget cap due to the sharp increase in costs teams have faced since the beginning of the year, says McLaren’s Andreas Seidl.
McLaren have long supported the budget cap which was introduced last year. Each team is limited to spending a maximum of $140 million this year, plus an additional allowance for extra races, and with certain types of expenditure excluded.
However severe rises in energy and transportation costs since the season began will making it extremely difficult not to exceed the limit, says Seidl.
“It is clear for us sticking to the cost cap is an absolute necessity for the sport,” he said. “It’s not a secret that we were pushing quite a lot for introducing this budget cap and also pushing towards the numbers we are having now.
“At the same time I think it’s important that if exceptional circumstances arise like the ones we have this year – if you just look at our utility bills and we look at the unbelievable increase of freight costs – that it must be possible to have a discussion between all the teams together with the FIA in order to find fair solutions.”
At this point in the year, teams have committed to so much of their expenditure that they are running out of opportunities to save money to reach the cap limit, said Seidl.
“We are in the middle of the season now, everyone has prepared for the season in order to somehow run at the cap and with these exceptional circumstances and these rises it’s pretty much impossible to still stick to the cap.
“That’s why I think it’s just fair to discuss solutions between all teams. And that means, from our point of view, it would be fair to increase the cap maybe linked to these specific costs that have increased significantly.”
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The additional costs teams are facing run to “several millions”, said Seidl, “”because that’s the increase…