Wind of rebellion on the question of money

This weekend in Austin, Texas, the starting grid was reduced by four cars with the combined absences of Marussia and Caterham, for financial reasons. A question also raised during the press conference where team managers were present on Friday and which gave rise to lively debates.

"Now it's time to tell it like it is, says Gérard Lopez, co-owner of Lotus. First: the distribution of income in F1 is not good. The importance of what is distributed or not is debatable. But now you know, when you have teams going to the championship who are getting more money just for committing than teams who are also there for an entire season then something is wrong in the system and should not be occur. It's not something to talk about, but it's time to do something about it, so we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks. The second thing is the cost cap. We will always find excuses for not having a cost cap. There are reasons why certain areas should not be affected, but there are also reasons why certain areas should be. And, once again, now is the time for action rather than talk. We say things and then we tend to do the opposite. I am going to give you an example. The birth of these new engines came when we started talking about cost reduction. The fact is that with the new engine, which from a technological point of view is a good thing, the costs have been transferred to all the teams. In our case, this year, between the engine and the development, we spent probably something like US$50-60000000. This isn't cost cutting for us, it's basically throwing money out the window. »

Beyond the expectations of the “mid” grid teams, the answers to the questions raised do not seem ready to present themselves. “We are talking about a problem that affects the owner of the commercial rights, Explain Toto wolff, boss of Mercedes Motorsport. But I don't have the solution. I can come up with several ideas, some of which are short-term, but we will always come back to the principle that whatever you give to the teams, they will spend it. » For his part, Vijay Mallya, owner of Force India, believes that money is not everything, but also calls for an overhaul of the system. “Money does not necessarily bring performance. If the big teams want to spend $300 million, let them do it. This cannot be used against small teams. Small teams need to get a share of revenue that makes them financially viable or sustainable. That's the point. »