The biggest Formula 1 teams have begun to find ways to exploit budget cap rules in relation to staff numbers, according to Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
The regulations were brought in to create a level playing field among all 10 teams, in the financial sense. Most were either already operating on a budget lower than the cap or did not have to take too many cost-cutting measures, but the big three in particular needed to rein in their spending.
That, unfortunately, involved a swathe of job cuts. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull were forced to cut staff numbers in order to give themselves a better chance of complying with the budget cap – of course, the latter did commit a "minor" overspending breach in 2021, the first season the regulations came into force.
By not having to restructure staff, at least nowhere near as drastically, teams like Alpine had an all-too-rare advantage over those big three. The top teams had to cut costs and the teams at the back couldn't even reach the cap anyway, but Alpine were pretty much bang on the money and so didn't have to make too many changes
But team principal Szafnauer feels any edge they once had has now disappeared, with the bigger teams looking to recruit again as they look to exploit the wording of the regulations in any way they can. "When everyone's the right size, you lose that [advantage]. You lose that a little bit," he told reporters.
"What some of the other bigger teams are now doing is they're looking to exploit or have a better understanding of where there are loopholes or some organisational changes you can make to actually stuff more people under that budget cap.
"They're looking at: 'Yeah, I got rid of a hundred people, but now I want to hire back because under the budget cap I was able to find spots for them where they either don't count as a whole person or they do some marketing stuff or whatever it is, or they work on a boat for some of the time'.
"We're not there yet. I think they're there already, and that advantage of being right at the beginning does dissipate." Any team which does want to get creative with staffing will, however, run the risk of falling foul of the FIA's rules.
Red Bull's defence when their breach was first confirmed was that they felt they were under the cap, before it became clear they had omitted some areas in their accounting which the FIA counted as part of the cap. The governing body did accept there was no evidence of any ill will on Red Bull's behalf.
