IF THE BUDGET CAP DOESN’T FIT
PICTURES McLAREN, ALPINE AND RED BULL CONTENT POOL
FOLLOWING THE INTRODUCTION OF Formula 1’s budget cap, the one thing which seemed inevitable was that its limits would soon be tested. Coping with factors inside F1 was one thing: financial allowances were made for the addition of sprint races and the ever-expanding nature of the calendar.
Turn to factors outside F1’s control, and the shrinking nature of the global village and its impact on every facet of staging a world championship becomes evident. COVID-19 proved that. F1 ground to halt in spring 2020 and is still dealing with the pandemic’s effects on global travel, supply chains and logistics.
As a result this year’s budget cap, a ceiling of $140m on each team’s race car design, manufacturing and operations, was already at odds with a world of variation, fluctuation and unpredictability.
Yet nothing could have prepared F1 for president Vladimir Putin’s decision to authorise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. The man who presented Lewis Hamilton with the winner’s trophy at the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in Sochi, 2014, anticipated that a short, sharp ‘special military operation’ would overthrow the government in Kyiv in three days.
War – what is it good for?
It turns out that Putin could have done with a decent F1-style strategy room, because
