Hass believe the financial boost from their deal with incoming title sponsor MoneyGram will allow the team to operate at the maximum budget allowed under Formula 1’s cost cap in 2023.
Last weekend Haas announced a new, multi-year deal with MoneyGram which will include title sponsorship from next year. The team has been without one since the start of this year when it dropped Russian firm Uralkali following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
F1 currently has a annual cap of $140 million on team budgets, and for 2023 that will decrease to $135 million (£116.8m) although inflationary pressures could mean adjustments are made to that figure.
Haas team principal Gunther Steiner said the arrival of MoneyGram “should get us to the cost cap, or at least very close,” in 2023.
“We are in the process now to do the budget for next year, so we’ll see where we get to. But that is saying, to get to the cost cap, we were not far off this year to be honest. So hopefully we are at the cost cap next year.
“You can also spend money outside of the cost cap with having private jets and stuff like this. We are not there yet, but one day we’ll be there.”
The cost cap was introduced in 2021 and initially set at $145 million, with expenses. Three teams have fallen foul of the new rules so far. Aston Martin, Red Bull and Williams were all found to have committed procedural breaches in the submission of their expenditure.
However only Red Bull has been found to have exceeded the spending limit. The FIA stated this was a ‘Minor Financial Overspend’, which the regulations state is a breach of the cap by no more than 5%.
However Steiner thinks the categorisation of overspending should have narrower windows than a minor breach being as high as almost 105% of the cost cap.
“It should be smaller in my opinion,” he said. “If I call it now $140 million budget cap, 5% is $7 million. But in $140 million, you have got certain expenses which you cannot change.
“So these expenses are not $7 million on development, it’s expenses, 5% on the development, it’s a bigger number. The percentage is the same, but it makes a bigger difference. And I think we have to rethink that one when the next Concorde Agreement is written.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2022 United States Grand Prix
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…