EPISODE 13: Szafnauer joins Ted Kravitz, Johnny Herbert and Simon Lazenby to discuss the latest topics in F1 - including the much-debated cost-cap...
Wednesday 29 April 2020 17:27, UK
Formula 1 teams should be presented with a budget-cap proposal within the next week, according to Racing Point's Otmar Szafnauer - who has urged other team bosses not to be "selfish" as they try to agree on the new spending limit.
F1 bosses have been locked in negotiations for several weeks about a cost-cap for 2021 - which was originally set at $175million but will be significantly lowered to help teams financially recover from the coronavirus crisis.
"I think we'll have a proposal pretty soon, either by the end of this week or early next week," said Szafnauer on the latest Sky F1 Vodcast.
"We'll see what Jean [Todt, FIA president] and Chase [Carey, F1 chairman] and FOM come up with."
A new limit of around $145m has been mooted, although McLaren and other teams want it at around the $100m mark. That idea has met opposition, namely from Ferrari - who want to avoid making a hasty and "emotional" decision. Much to the annoyance of rival bosses.
Szafnauer says a middle ground can and should be found.
"Maybe I'm more pragmatic than many others, but I think what we need to do here is look at the entirety of the sport - not just be selfish as we generally are for our own position," added the Racing Point team principal, who joined Ted Kravitz, Johnny Herbert and Simon Lazenby on the Vodcast.
"Yes, the big teams have come down from 175 to something smaller, but 100m for them might be just a little bit too far to go and a little bit too deep of a cut. So I think somewhere in between there is just about right."
Szafnauer explained that a budget-cap of around $130m would "suit Racing Point to a tee" and that they would be able to "operate there very easily" - although accepted that many of the bigger teams might oppose.
But he insisted that it was key for F1 to keep all its teams "equally upset, or equally happy".
"We've got to be realistic and pragmatic so that we don't have a budget cap where some of the bigger teams say, 'do you know what, at this level I'm not efficient. I'm better off taking my x-amount of world championships and leaving'.
"We don't want that. We want to keep everybody racing, keep F1 in its entirety that it is today. So we should go for a budget cap that either keeps everybody equally upset, or equally happy."
