The newly introduced budget cap has been a strain for the big teams to accept. Red Bull being a prime example, the team Principal Christian Horner expressed his “pain” from the rule.
Formula One introduced the budget cap for this season, and it came as a huge blow for the Milton Keynes-based team. With crew members over 800, it has been difficult for the team to maintain everything in the team with a $145M budget.
Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner looking at the qualifying session of his team (Image Courtesy: Getty Images)
The Red Bull team management took some tough decisions in order to maintain the financial target. In that regard, Horner conveyed, “We’re in the 800s, but we have so many activities as well where we supply, for example, a gearbox to Toro Rosso (sic), so those manufacturing staff are included within that number.”
The 47-year-old boss further asserted on the hard decisions made to abide by the cap, “We’ve had to go through the pain of redundancies over the winter, we’ve had to re-size, re-package ourselves and it’s really tough when you’re saying goodbye to members of the team, some of which have been there for 25 years across its different formats.”
Cost cap is a bitter pill to swallow, feels Christian Horner
The ‘bitter pill’ as expressed by Horner has been a headache for the team bosses this season. F1 introduced the budget cap in October last year. The primary aim of the new cost cap is to deliver a more competitive championship and promote an equal playing field among all the teams participating in Formula One.
For the first time in F1 history, financial rules will be enshrined in the new regulations
This is how the cost cap will work#F12021 pic.twitter.com/GY0WPdkH85
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 31, 2019
The budget cap has hit the leader teams more than the tailender teams. Teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, or Ferrari faced many such restrictions way more than the team like Haas, Williams, or Alfa Romeo.
The bigger and advanced the team is, the more crew members. Adding on, this cost cap has been fruitful for the tailender teams, as they can now compete better since everyone’s bound with the same financial capacity.
Read More: Red Bull needs “quicker car” more than “fixing problems” recommends Team Chief Christian Horner
