Haas team principal, Gunther Steiner disagrees with Zak Brown’s stance on increased budget cap for sprint braces

Haas team principal, Gunther Steiner disagrees with Zak Brown’s stance on increased budget cap for sprint braces

Gunther Steiner, Zak Brown

The concept of Sprint race was introduced in f1 during the 2021 season for the first time ever. The main aim of F1 Sprint races was designed to provide a short and fast-paced racing spectacle with more viewing coverage even during practice sessions. The race was designed over 100kms on Saturday evening initially with only 3 race tracks, The British, Italian, Brazilian GP for a trial period.  

The Sprint races in 2021 were a huge success with hugely-dramatic and exciting events leading to hike in viewership for Friday and Saturday races as well compared to the main Sunday race. Due to this, plans were being formulated by F1 to expand sprint races from 3 to 6 events in 2022 with revision in the points payout and designation of pole position for the Sprint Grand Prix.

The budget for Sprint Grand Prix is set at £103m ($140m) for all the 10 teams this year however, talks have come to a halt due to opposition from the top teams, who wanted the budget cap raised to cover potential crash damage from the sprints.

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McLaren boss, Zak Brown called one team’s push for a $5 million increase in the budget cap “ridiculous” and “devoid of rational facts”. While Hass team principal, Gunther Steiner said on Friday that expects the Sprint races to take place at three races for the 2022 year as well.

Haas’ unbelievable reaction to the increased budget cap for teams

Guenther Steiner
Mick Schumacher, Nikita Mazepin

When Gunther was asked about his opinion regarding the disappointment showed by the big teams’, he appreciated their efforts and said, they were “trying to do the best job they can” and play to their strengths.

“If you’ve got money, the thing you need is a bigger budget cap – like when you haven’t got the money, what you try to do is to get more money, so I think they’re just doing their job. It doesn’t disappoint me. But I think you’ve got the governance in place which will deal with it. That is what you have to do.”

“If you’ve got money, the thing you need is a bigger budget cap – like when you haven’t got the money, what you try to do is to get more money,” said Steiner.

The 10 teams are set to meet with the F1 officials at the next commission held on the 14th February. In order to support for a rule change over sprints to be passed for the regulation, eight of the 10 teams need to give their support. Seemingly, without the support of Mercedes, Red bull and Ferrari there remains a chance of f1 abandoning their Sprint plans entirely for 2022.

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