With F1 quickly heading towards yet another vast and sweeping rule change, Zak Brown is quick to laud his own teams’ improved chances because of it.
Written By Ian Bruce, Edited By Ty Fuller
For the first time in F1 history, teams have to work within a cost cap of $145 million. This is yet another scheme to try and obtain some parity between all teams. There is also the limiting of wind tunnel and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) time for more successful teams, and giving slower teams more time.
Brown has seen this as a great opportunity for McLaren to return themselves back to the top of the heap, where they rightly belong. They enjoyed their best season since 2012 last year, securing 3rd place ahead of Racing Point. Some doubters might think this was down to a few factors; Ferrari’s unceremonious fall of grace and Racing Points point reduction. To me, they deserved it, McLaren are slowly coming back.
He has admitted that they have had to reduce their own spending, stating “The budget cap, we’ve had to reduce our spend a bit, but not to the same level as the other three that were significantly outspending us”.
He also spoke of the new governance structure; “The governance is better, it gives more power Formula 1 and the FIA as opposed to the teams, because the trams with all the political power, with the previous governance, were able to better keep things shaped around their agenda. I think that it gets neutralised”.
The ‘other three’ are obviously Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari and they are the hardest hit by these new tighter budgets. All 3 are well used to just throwing money to fix problems, but let’s not kid ourselves that this will mean that they will fall back quickly. Mercedes, for example, have been developing their W12 since the middle of last season.
To my mind, the budget cap will level out the playing field, but it will not have an instant effect. I don’t think we will see a dramatic fall of Mercedes from their lofty peak any time soon. With McLaren returning to Mercedes engines though, will we see the return of a once great team to the top of the sport again. We can but hope that it will be interesting anyway.