Can team budgets be capped?

[Kirk]

A simple question with all the talk about the rediculous costs of running an F1 team. Can team budgets be capped and accurately monitored? Personally, I doubt it but has the concept ever been seriously proposed?

[ASCII Man]

I'll express my opinion about this before k-b kicks in.
I don't think it's ever been seriously considered, but I think it would be a good solution to limit costs.

[neilap]

I think caps are porbably the best solution. If the panalty for going beyond the cap is severe enough teams wont try to bend the rules. I feel its the best way to cut costs. The idea of dumbing down the cars goes against everything F1.

[maltafan]

It could be a good idea. This way some senseless regualtions (like the two-race engine) can be removed, however, I think that teams will surely find a way to bypass certain expenses from their records. So I doubt if it will leave the desired effect.

[Kicking-back]

It would be a ludicrous idea.

Very easy to circumvent.

[DKGandBH]

Could never work.

MS would be the highest paid Ferrari Car Dealership PR person
(and be paid $1.50 for his appearances behind the wheel for the Ferrari Racing Team)

etc...

DKGandBH

[Dan Fielden]

I think that limiting the teams to the same budgets would simply deter manufactures away from the sport. If you take into consideration the amount of money teams like Toyota, Honda and Ferrari are paying to succeed or at least trying to it seems a shame to introduce this idea. I doubt they will.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Unpractical for all the reason stated above...what about those with Customer engines? Buy a number of engines for the season which fits the budget, but the engine supplier keeps improving and updating the next engine to be delivered - meanwhile the teams with their own engines cant develop their engines because the development costs have to be factored into the budget.

A team has a run of incidents in which cars are damaged, by the end of the seaon their budget has hit it's cap with one last race to go...Then what happens? Sponsors among others are going to be very unhappy at a non appearence.

[Adam43]

Costs are limited in other series. Not by direct means, but they are controlled. Watch those as that is what F1 would become. So why change F1 into something that is already out there?

The glory days of F1 weren't cost controlled. So why? Maybe if F1 was run in a communist state! Although maybe democracy in F1 doesn't work either

[ACE Motorsport]

IMHO, no, they should not be capped.
F1 is about the best drivers in the world, driving the most advanced and fastest cars in the world, and if they are the most expensive in the world, then so much the better.
If you want restricted cars to race, there are many series’ that you can get involved in.

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

Costs are limited in other series. Not by direct means, but they are controlled. Watch those as that is what F1 would become. So why change F1 into something that is already out there?

The glory days of F1 weren't cost controlled. So why? Maybe if F1 was run in a communist state! Although maybe democracy in F1 doesn't work either

I find myself at the opposite end of that argument Adam. Budgets in excess of 400 Million and climbing could ruin the sport. It's only a matter of time. The question is, can the budgets be controlled by rules, which is the stance Bernie seems to be taking? I hope so, as budget caps are literally impossible to govern.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by ACE Motorsport

IMHO, no, they should not be capped.
F1 is about the best drivers in the world, driving the most advanced and fastest cars in the world, and if they are the most expensive in the world, then so much the better.
If you want restricted cars to race, there are many series’ that you can get involved in.

Many series are "restricted" in order to cut costs.

If i wanted to see a spending competition i need only let my wife go shopping with her friends.

[Marbot]

Surely it would be better for F1 to have more teams on reduced budgets,rather than two or three car makers highjacking the series for their own ends.For example http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpa...s_art_id=26775

[Mekola]

AFAIK, Formula 1 never had that level of investment by car makers before last ten years. In the 1950s there were many car makers, but most of them were in some kind artessanal and more focused to sportscars than common car manufacturing (like in the actuality we had in F1 companies like Venturi, Spyker, Pagani...). So we should step back to the second half of 1930s to know a parangon of investment by car makers on Grand Prix races.
And what happened in 1930s? So the same that happens today. A grid dominated by top car manufacturers, followed by a shrinked grid of "private" teams. But at least they had three cars per team, not like nowadays where we have only two.

[Mekola]

When in mid-1990 F1 want to attract the interest of carmakers to increase the prestige of the series, they turned more restrictive in professionalism and expected higher levels of budget to prevent fiascos like Andrea Moda.
But now their goal was extremely fulfilled, so F1 can relax some of these restrictions in spite of permit lower teams a possibility to enter in, starting by reducing or scrapping the entry fee of U$S 48 million.

[Asa]

If we say budget can't be capped because F1 must be the most technically advanced, then I don't agree, because F1 is NOT the most technically advanced formula. Just look at the grooved tyres. Nowadays there are so many technical restrictions.

If it is due to problems like damaged cars and not enough budget left to build new ones, then I think it can be worked around through the regulations like points deduction.

I think the most difficult problem is policing this rule. How do you know they only take money from the designated sources/accounts and not others?

I even heard rumours of teams laundering money before...

[Dan Fielden]

We cant make these asumptions purley on hearsay. Teams these days are PROFESSIONAL organisations and wouldn't risk laundering money like any other large organisation. Being caught would bring them and the sport in disrepute and result in the law being involved. IMO

[BootsOntheSide]

There are ways to disguise the figurs though, and the likelihood tof them being dicovered can be pretty small with creative accounting. Testing will be cahrged to the tyre companies, and paid for the them under the table, driver wages will be fiddled in the way mentioned previously, and so on. Costs do need to be kept under control, but I think that has be done by applying rules which limit the value in spending an excessive amount.

[Dan Fielden]

Ok admitadley cost cutting measures can be taken by teams, but that is inevitable isn't it. Its not money laundering, but well explained there boots

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Asa

If we say budget can't be capped because F1 must be the most technically advanced, then I don't agree, because F1 is NOT the most technically advanced formula. Just look at the grooved tyres. Nowadays there are so many technical restrictions.

The current grooved tyres are more advanced than practically any other tyre in motorsport, or that has been in F1. Partly because they will always try hardest in F1 and partly by the very existence of the grooves. A slick tyre will be better, but not necessarily more advanced.

On a general point, Renault won the championship this year and aren't the biggest spenders out there. kirk is right there could be a problem, but then there could be a problem with cost capping. Oh no we're in trouble!

[pole2pole]

It would never work and if implemented I would fear that some of the manufactures would wave by by to f1. With teams like toyota and honda, these guys have got a very important tool in there box...... a massive budget and will use this to there advantage

[Marbot]

Should cost cutting be implemented how do we start from a level playing field? Will a budget take into account the assets a team already has (wind tunnels,test tracks and so on)?

[ensign14]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

It would be a ludicrous idea.

Very easy to circumvent.

There must be a way to make it work, though. They can manage it in the States with the baseball and gridiron. And it would return F1 to the pinnacle of engineering prowess because they could throw all the regs out. Make it formula libre. Only thing is you've got to do it at £100m per year, all inclusive...that'd make it a real engineering challenge rather than Formula Spend as it's been for most of the years since about 2000.

The FIA could of course throw any team out if they caught them cheating. Then again, they promised they'd do that if they caught a team with illegal software on the car. On a totally different subject, who won the 1994 title?

[ASCII Man]

°quickly closes can of worms°

On subject, it is very much possible, it's been successfully done before, so F1 is no different.
If the ones that police it use common sense and wouldn't allow themselves to be pushed around.

Hmm... common sense and F1..
Ok, no chance in hell it would work!

[Andrew2001]

The only way it can be done I believe is have a set limit, and all a team's sponsorship money is distributed to the FIA and the FIA in turn dictates that the exact amount is being given to them which they in turn give to the respective team ensuring a limit is reached. I wouldn't touch the FIA with a two foot barge pole not to mention hand over money so that idea won't work anyway.