“Remove Red Bull”: Otmar Szafnauer Hails F1’s Budget Cap as He Reflects on the 2023 Season

Ever since its introduction, the budget cap has made headlines and divided opinion. The FIA introduced the cap and kept reducing it until the 2023 season. Now, initially, with the top three teams, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull still dominated and all entities united against the cap, ridiculing it for not bringing the competition closer. However, former boss Otmar Szafnauer has highlighted why that is still the case and also pointed out that if we take one variable out, the grid was closer in 2023.

The budget cap initially caused a lot of uproar and even teams like Red Bull breached it due to their carelessness. However, Szafnauer discussed how the cap is slowly taking effect if we remove the Max Verstappen and Red Bull anomaly from the 2023 season on the Inside Line F1 podcast.

“I think the cars have gotten closer together but that’s for a number of reasons. No. 1 the budget cap and No.2 the technical regulations as they are today. But I think one of the reasons you still have the top three teams, is legacy. It’s about the infrastructure and the tools that I talk about. Many of those were established before the budget cap came in,” explained Szafnauer as the reason behind the continued dominance.

He then hailed the budget cap for bringing the competition closer, apart from the Red Bull anomaly. He added, “Say you remove Red Bull or say you just remove Max. The rest were pretty close. I think Mercedes beat Ferrari by just a few points for second place, as an example. Ferrari, had they not had the mishap in Vegas where no fault of their own they hit the drain cover that came up, they would’ve finished second. If you remove Max from the equation, Sergio (Perez) was fighting with Lewis (Hamilton) for second place till the end. So if you look down, it is a bit closer, and I think as time goes on, it will get closer even more so.”

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We can’t help but agree with the Romanian on his assessment of the 2023 season and the budget cap’s influence on the grid. The field has truly gotten closer it is just Verstappen’s performance that overshadowed it.

Speaking of the budget cap, even McLaren CEO Zak Brown had an interesting take stemming from the spending limitations.

Zak Brown makes an interesting proposition on the regulations based on the budget cap introduction

The budget cap has limited every team’s ability to spend however much they like to bring whatever upgrades they want to the car to make the sport more competitive. We are all on the same page about that. However, because of this exact spending restriction, Brown wants to see some variations in the car’s overall design.

The McLaren CEO believes because they have a limit on how much they can spend, the sport should give creative liberties to the team instead of adding more regulations, so all cars look more or less the same.

“Since we have the budget cap, I’d like to see the regulations open up and not be so restrictive because we have a cap,” Brown expressed on the Track Limits podcast. “If you want to go test instead of being in a wind tunnel, go test, If you want to do more wind tunnel time, do more wind tunnel time. If you want to put six wheels on the car, put six wheels on the car.”

Coincidentally, back in the 1976 season, there were cars with 6 wheels with varied levels of success on the track. However, the FIA banned them the following season and introduced regulations.

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We doubt Brown’s wishes will be granted anytime soon with FIA and F1’s desire to make racing closer. This is exactly why we have to agree with Szafnauer, because the competition has surely gotten closer, except at the very top.