Ferrari to consider F1 future over budget cap changes

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says he would “look at other further options for deploying our racing DNA” if a lower team cost cap was installed in Formula 1.

Ferrari has been the biggest opponents to lowering the team budget cap put forward in the latest F1 crunch talks, having already agreed to an initial cost cap of $175 million (with certain exclusions on marketing and driver salaries) for 2021.

McLaren has led the call to reduce the cost cap to as far as $100m per team to combat the significant drop in revenue each team is facing during the coronavirus crisis and lack of racing this year.

A middle ground of $145m per team per season is thought to have been offered but Ferrari has fought against it, reasoning its expenditure will be higher than most other teams as an engine constructor and supplier to other teams.

Ferrari has previously suggested a two-tier F1 budget cap, with more financial scope permitted to teams which supply components such as engines to other teams, but that idea has also been dismissed in the F1 team meetings.

This has led to a thinly-veiled threat from Ferrari boss Binotto the Italian team could leave F1 if the tighter cost cap is applied.

“The $145m level is already a new and demanding request compared to what was set out last June,” Binotto told the Guardian. “It cannot be attained without further significant sacrifices, especially in terms of our human resources. If it was to get even lower, we would not want to be put in a position of having to look at other further options for deploying our racing DNA.”

The key issue Ferrari also faces is the cost cap is likely to force it into making redundancies within its F1 organisation with some set to be against Italian employment law.

In the same way F1 is looking to protect its smaller teams, Ferrari warns its own situation must be considered before making cost cap changes.

“F1, we have all sorts of teams with different characteristics,” Binotto said. “They operate in different countries, under different legislation and with their own ways of working. Therefore it is not simple and straightforward to make structural changes simply by cutting costs in a linear fashion.

“We are well aware that F1 and indeed the whole world right now is going through a particularly difficult time because of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this is not the time to react in a hurry as there’s a risk of making decisions on the back of this emergency without clearly evaluating all the consequences.”

Another idea put forward is F1 teams with bigger manufacturing capabilities like Ferrari and Mercedes could supply customer cars to smaller teams, at least in the short term, following the model currently used in MotoGP.

MotoGP manufacturers run their own factory teams and can also supply bikes to customer satellite teams, with varying levels of support depending on agreements in place between the satellite team and the factory.

“If the current emergency really put the existence of some of our competitors in this sport in doubt and made it necessary to revise certain cornerstones, then Ferrari would be open to it,” Binotto said. “It’s not even sacrilegious, given it’s happened before in F1 and happens today in series such as MotoGP.”