Formula One Teams to have Budget Cap Starting in 2009
In a letter sent this week to all 11 Formula One team principals, FIA president Max Mosley has confirmed a budget cap for the sport, starting in the 2009 season.
No number was given for the cap, but in Mosley’s plan, major areas of expense would fall outside of the new limitations, including engine costs, marketing, and driver wages.
(Click through the jump to read on about the 2009 F1 budget cap.)
FIA technical adviser Tony Purnell will meet with financial representatives of each F1 team on January 31 in Paris, with the hopes of setting a budget cap figure for 2009, and possibly the 2010 and 2011 seasons as well.
There’s also mention of a financial working group being set up by the FIA in June of this year, should “sufficient progress
Comments
Roland M
What a concept! A budget cap that excludes the main items in the budget...F1 has become irrelevant
Mena
What they should have instead is a minimum budget. You can't compete unless you have 5 years worth of X amount budgeted.
Russ Bellinis
I don't see how it can work. If you don't include major costs like engines, driver wages, even the cars themselves, what are you limiting? If you do somehow contrive a formula to control the major costs, what happens if a team blows a bunch of engines or has the cars crash out of the race? Restrictions on testing and wind tunnels could lower costs, but why are they concerned with lowering costs? This isn't NASCAR, they are running races all over the world. It is going to cost to transport cars and teams all over the World. The 2 most significant areas where they could lower costs would be to lower the amount of money Bernie insists on taking off the top of every race, and set up a schedule to group races in specific geographical areas to eliminate the need to travel half way around the world, then back half way around the other way for the next race followed by another trip back to the area you were at 3 weeks ago. They do this to a certain extent, but dropping the U.S. Grand Prix because the "tom foolary" of the sanctioning body guarantees a farce followed by one or two races and then pull the plug when the promotor doesn't want to take a bath is crazy. Sinc the U.S., Canada, & Mexico comprise a larger geographical area than all of Europe, ther should be 2 U.S. gp races, 2 Canadian gp races if suitable venues can be found, and a race at Mexico City. Then you split travel costs between 5 races instead of 2 or now 1.
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