Originally posted by AFCA
The FIA has come up with a the proposal of a budget cap. For half a year now FIA man Tony Purnell is working to find a solution together with experts from the teams. The main problem is how to monitor the team's expenditures. Purnell's expertise will be followed for 95 %. Nevertheless the budget cap will be postponed by a year to 2010. The main reason are the high development costs for the hybrid technology, which will also have financial consequences for 2009.
Next year the FIA is willing to carry out a test. The teams will probably have to do with a budget of € 175 million, which must not be exceeded. But no one will be punished if more money is spend. The FIA is only willing to try out the monitoring mechanisms. From 2010 onwards Mosley will not show mercy to those exceeding the budget cap. He even wants to include the engine costs in the prefixed budget. So far they were excluded from the budget together driver's wages.
There's still no agreement over the height of the limit, which should be introduced in three steps. Some manufacturers like Honda are not willing to go below € 150 million (after the three steps). Renault deems a cap of € 90 million justifible, engine costs included. Toro Rosso even pleads for € 60 million a year. Tost: ''With € 60 million the cars will at most be half a second slower per lap. So we won't be having a single fan less.''
Amus writes that next year the FIA, under the guidance of Purnell, will indeed be carrying out this complicated test. Horner: ''The devil is in the details. A classic race team is easier to supervise than a manufacturer that is able to hide development work within the company.''
The teams don't agree on where to start with the budget cap. Honda, Toyota, BMW and even Red Bull plead for € 175 million. Renault and Williams would rather have a cap of € 150 million, which is what Force India would be happy about too. Toro Rosso prefers commencing with a € 120 million budget and like Tost (^ quote ^), Berger thinks ending with € 60 million in the final stage is feasable: ''That's still twenty times more than the budget of the GP2 teams.''
Though Williams contradicts: ''€ 100 million is the minimum. New F1 teams shouldn't be facilitated too much.'' The 66-year old fears that the starting fees and the television revenues must be divided over more (/ too many) teams when F1 get's too cheap.
Renault pleads for having a € 90 million budget cap at the end of the three step plan. A high ranked Renault man: ''Our president Carlos Ghosn will stick to Formula 1 if we can show him a plan that sends out signal that we will be able to cut down the costs in the next three years. But the Renault Formula 1 project is in danger if succes is dependent on spending huge amounts of money.''
Renault holds a different opinion in comparison to the other manufacture-teams. The manufacturers are not willing to go under € 150 million being afraid of having to fire too many employees. This could be seen as a defensive lie. In this world no jobs are lost. The less money Formula 1 costs, the more teams (from other racing formula's) can afford to get into F1. And they obviously need engineers, mechanics, managers, etc.
So Mosley is also willing to include the engine costs in the budget cap (^ quote ^). The price for customer engines will be arranged, in Red Bull's case they have to pay Renault $ 16 million. There's an exception for those that build engines themselves: they're are allowed to add extra development costs to the prearranged cap.
As far as the windtunnels are concerned: dependent on the infrastructure of the teams (some use only one windtunnel, Honda use four !), a certain part of the usage will be included in the budget. Clearly though, Ferrari's plan to limit the amount of windtunnels, their usage and to cut the number of employees in the area of computer simulations, has been whipped off the table. Williams was threatening to go the European Court of Justice in case he would be limited to fully make use of his windtunnels.
