Interesting: the connection between the pit wall and the budget cap
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- GPblog.com
A budget cap in F1 is mostly thought about how teams invest their money in the technical development of the car, however, it applies to much more - such as the number of seats at the pit wall.
Transport costs are part of the budget ceiling and are a big burden for F1 teams, especially now that seasons consist of more and more races, which means even more flying back and forth. The pit wall and all its technical gadgets are also among the parts that have to be transported. So how long that wall is, matters for the overall cost.
Four seats
Mercedes has a pit wall of just four seats and team principal Toto Wolff sits in the garage. We know this image all too well because of Wolff's famous outbursts on live television from his seat in the garage. However, such a short wall does mean that Mercedes have a little less transport costs in this area and can therefore be more efficient with the budget ceiling.
Eight seats
By contrast, Aston Martin, for example, has as many as eight seats on its wall. "I don't know myself why we have so many seats," Aston Martin team manager Andy Stevenson told Auto, Motor und Sport.
"As far as I'm concerned, we could do away with the thing altogether and house the engineers somewhere else."
Incidentally, the pit wall is an iconic image within the sport, so whether it will be abolished in the (near) future remains to be seen. In any case, it does come at a cost, especially for teams using a longer wall with more seats and equipment.