Jean Todt proposes $50M capped ‘Super Formula 2’ if F1 teams fold
FIA President Jean Todt has revealed he could push forward a drastic overhaul of the F1 regulations with a much stricter budget cap if a handful of the smaller teams can’t survive the coronavirus crisis.
The Frenchman has long been in favour of a budget cap in an effort to level the playing field and reduce costs, even if the viability of such a practice has been regularly called into question.
Despite this, F1 is pushing ahead with plans to introduce a cap from 2021 with incremental decreases over the following years, though this could still amount to upwards of $150 million a season.
However, with teams feeling the pinch from the pause to F1 racing, it is feared the sport could look very different anyway when the season begins if some of the smaller teams cannot weather the storm or if the ‘worse case scenario’ of there being no 2020 season at all is realised.
As such, Todt believes it could become the impetus for a complete overhaul of the budget cap, coming in as low as $50 million in order to assure the future of the sport and give it a blank sheet of paper from which to work from.
He brands it as ‘Super Formula 2’ in a nod to its occupying the space between the two series’ in terms of performance.
“Then we would have to ask the owners of commercial rights fundamental questions,” he told Auto Motor und Sport. “What should Formula 1 look like in the future?
“In the worst scenario, Formula 1 as we know it today would no longer be possible. With a cost cap of $50 million without exceptions it would be nothing like it is. It would be a completely new Formula 1. A Super Formula 2.”
With the original plan to introduce all-new regulations in 2021 deferred to 2022, the sport is still working out the finer details of what next season could look like with a clampdown on major changes in an effort to ease the financial burden of some teams.
Those thought to be most at risk from the current crisis are understood to be Williams, Alpha Tauri and Haas.
