Marussia pushing for cost cutting

(Ben Johnston 2014)

Marussia F1 Team President and Sporting Director Graeme Lowdon has urged Formula One to adopt an affect way of cutting costs or face failure. The sport was set to bring in a budget gap to help to reduce the expense of running a team in the series however, this idea was dismissed by Lotus, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull Racing and Williams who are all part of Formula One's Strategy Group. 

Speaking to the Press Association Sport Lowdon said: 

'There are two elements that are a feature of those sports; one is an equitable distribution of finances within the sport, and the second is cost control of some description.'

He went on to say

Financial accountability is the cornerstone of commerce, and the methods of auditing and accounting are as tried and tested as measuring the size of wings in scrutineering, or anything else like that.'.

Cost cutting has been a major talking point in Formula One for many years now and the fact that a cost cap wasn't introduced a number of years ago forced the likes of Eddie Jordan and Paul Stoddart of the of the sport due to the fact that it become too expensive for them to run their team's and as a result they were unable to compete with the larger team's like Ferrari and McLaren.

Peter Sauber managed to sell his team to BMW but the Germany car manufacturer eventually felt that for the investment they were pumping into their F1 programme was not worth it as they were not getting the desired results on track.

If we look back at the recent history of Formula One we have had Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Renault, Toyota and Honda all involved as manufacturers, however it became too expensive for BMW, Honda, Renault and Toyota so they all pulled out of the sport as they were not achieving the results that their huge investment warranted. Renault now supply four team's while Honda will return next season as they will supply McLaren with engines and technical support.

If manufacturer's find it tough to survive in Formula One then one can only imagine what it is like for team's such as Marussia and Caterham to survive let alone compete at the front so it is major balancing act.

Formula One has just spent millions in developing new technology such as Energy Recovery Systems and the new 1.6 litre turbo charged engines so it is extremely surprising that the teams are not willing to introduce some sort of cost cap to ensure the financial security of all the team's especially during the current economic climate.

It would be extremely beneficial for Formula One to adopt a similar system to the Financial Fare Play scheme that is currently in place in Football.

©Ben Johnston 2014