Steiner wants decision on F1 cost cap by mid-2018

Haas Formula 1 chief Günther Steiner wants Liberty Media to provide details on plans for a cost cap in the series by the middle of next year in order to allow the team to move forward with its recruitment process or restructure.

Haas entered F1 in 2016 as a start-up team prior to Liberty’s takeover of the series and the resumption of talk over a cost cap, known to be high on the agenda in a bid to create a more level playing field.

Haas is currently looking to expand and grow as a team now it has two seasons in F1, but Steiner said it was hard to make decisions on recruitment if a cost cap would ultimately limit budget or personnel numbers.

“We’ve already started this process at about mid-season when we discussed we were still up and down and needed to settle,” Steiner said when asked how much more the team needed to develop.

“At the moment we want to stop because we want to see what Liberty Media comes up with for the cost cap. Why would we grow a team for one or two years then to dismantle it again?

“That is never good, so you’d rather try to work with a smaller amount of people and when the cost cap is here if there are no negatives then we can grow and have growing pains rather than the pain of letting people go.

“We have to manage better the people we have at the moment. After next year we will know more about the new direction of the sport ahead of 2020-2021.

“With the cost cap coming in we don’t really know where to go and at the moment I don’t want to grow any bigger after our next step. Once we know where the sport is going then we can react but there is no point to react now and then counter-react a year later.

“It is only three years a way, but next year will go and if you recruit again after that, it is for 2019 and you might need to go smaller a year later. We need to know the direction of the sport.”

While Steiner recognised the challenge for Liberty of getting all F1 teams on the same page, he stressed direction was needed sooner rather than later.

“I think Liberty is working hard at it. It is very difficult to get 10 teams who are different in their structures, ambitions and why they are in the sport to get them together on common ground,” Steiner said.

“I think they will work diligently, and I hope by the middle of next year, we’ll have some answers.”