F1 News
F1 spending unsustainable according to new McLaren team principal
- Jake Williams-Smith
New McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl has insisted that the current levels of spending in Formula 1 are unsustainable.
Seidl, who moved over to McLaren from Porsche's incredibly-successful LMP1 World Endurance Championship programme, said that the current spending habits of teams would only hurt the sport's long term prospects.
“It is clear there is a huge gap at the moment between the top teams and all the other teams here in Formula 1,” Seidl is quoted by Motorsport Week.
“When I look back 10 years ago when I left Formula 1, the top teams kept increasing budgets and the number of people, infrastructure and so on.
“It is clearly not sustainable, Formula 1, how it is now because if you want to be competitive you need to put big money in.
“But as we have said before with the dialogue we’ve been having we are quite optimistic with Formula 1 and FIA that some good changes are coming up from 2021 onwards.
“I am optimistic that it is possible to be more competitive from the sporting side but also on the commercial side.”
Current talks are ongoing between teams and Liberty Media over new 2021 regulations that have been touted to include a preliminary budget cap on spending however no announcement is expected until June earliest.