Budget cap in 2021: another proof that the idea of equation of peloton balance won't work.
One of the main disadvantages of a new rule in regulations for 2021 has become clear.
The budget limitation is one of the most pressing topics in terms of preparing teams for the 2021 season. This restriction, introduced by liberty, is designed for trying make the top teams and the midfield teams more equal, equalize the balance of power and capabilities of the teams. However, teams have already found a "loophole" in this rule, and are already confident that the gap between the tops and the midfield, on the contrary, will increase.
The matter is that the rule of restriction of expenses will begin to work in 2021, and in 2020, next season, teams will have the whole year for which they will try to manage to prepare better the car by 2021, including having spent for it a huge number of unlimited financials. Many teams have already created special departments that prepare cars for the season-2021.
The head of Red Bull Racing Christian Horner believes that there are enough areas in which you can invest now, without waiting for a ban on unnecessary spending.
"You have an unrestricted and uncontrolled amount of money that you can spend on research and development across other areas. For me, I stand by what I said previously", - Horner said.
"It would have been better to have introduced the cap first and then the regulations a year down the line, because then the budget cap would have constrained the amount of spend. Next year looks to be our most expensive ever year in F1."
Christian said Red Bull had already got a special department that working on the 2021 regulations, and faced the prospect of needing two separate groups focusing on cars next year.
"Now the 2021 regulations are clear, we have an advanced team starting to investigate those regulations," - the principal said.
Renault F1 principal Cyril Abiteboul said that teams even may be forced to switch off their 2020 work early because of the work on the following year.
"We can argue that all teams face the same situation but there are some teams, and I am not going to name any in particular, that are happy with where they are and do not have the ambition that we have so 2021," - Cyril told.
"We will have to invest much more than some of the teams we are directly competing against today, so that will be a challenge."
The head of Toro Rosso Franz Tost urged not to expect that immediately after the entry into force of the new regulations of Formula 1 teams from the middle of the peloton will join the fight for the podium. According to Tost, we should not expect any big changes in 2021, only one or two years after that the gaps in the peloton will begin to reduce.