Formula One can make a budget cap work

(Sauber F1 Team)

Sauber F1 Team principal Monisha Keltenborn believes that the sport can come together and reach an agreement that will enable a cost cap to come into force in Formula One that will be beneficial to the team's and ensure the long term sustainable future of the sport.

Speaking on Thursday following a meeting between the FIA and the Formula One team bosses in London in which an agreement could not be reached Keltenborn, who believes that some teams who are concerned that a budget cap is too difficult to police are misplaced said:

'That's an argument I really cannot understand. The tricky part of it is what you do with inter-company transactions, but that is nothing new to Formula One, nothing new in the world, and there are other areas where this is done and other sports where this is done. It doesn't take rocket science to get that in there as well. What really matters is not only a good system, which is not difficult to do, but the penalties you put on.'

The Swiss based team are just one of a number of the smaller team's who have struggled financially recently and Keltenborn believes that an effective way of dealing with a budget cap would be to introduce a set of financial regulations that would be put place alongside the technical and sporting regulations.

This would be similar to what is being used in professional football at the moment. Uefa have put in place the financial fair play system so the FIA and the Formula One teams should work together to come up with a similar system as it is been proven that it can work in Football and therefore should be workable in Formula One.

This system would benefit all the teams as it would cut their operating costs and the FIA could introduce some sort of sporting regulation like a points deduction or championship exclusion if the budget cap was ignored.

Formula One is one of the most technologically advanced sports in the world and with the current economic climate it is within the interests of the teams competing to lower the costs involved in operating at the highest level of the motorsport. 

Formula One has already shown that it is still relevant to road car development as it introduced the 'greener' technology this season and now the sport needs to pull together to find a way of making itself more financially sound so that we don't have a situation of losing team's from the grid as that is not good for a sport that is the pinnacle of motor racing.

©Ben Johnston 2014