McLaren CEO Zak Brown warns F1 teams to break “bad habit” of money spending

McLaren CEO Zak Brown warns F1 teams to break “bad habit” of money spending

Zak Brown

The new regulations in 2022 brings in the newly formed cost caps into picture. Teams have to curb their costs to $140m across the 2022 season. These costs pertain to a team’s spending that impacts a race car’s performance which include parts, supplies, salaries of drivers, etc. But they could be severely impacted if FIA goes ahead with their plan of hosting 6 sprint races across a year.

“It’s going to be discussed next week at the FIA Commission,” said Mclaren CEO Zak Brown regarding sprint races. “I think as it’s been reported and discussed probably going to be more in the three range. From the data that was provided to us by Formula 1 late last year, it showed that the sprint races did drive incremental viewership, so from that standpoint, it was definitely considered a success.”

In a meeting between team principals and F1 chiefs during the Jeddah Grand Prix, it was revealed that a proposal of hosting about 6 sprint events across the 2022 season was put forward. The teams have requested F1 to reconsider their options due to the cost constraints.

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Zak Brown: “I think Formula 1 is taking a step back”

Gunther Steiner, Zak Brown
Gunther Steiner, Zak Brown

Constructors have requested the FIA to look back on the 6 sprint races a year plan. They have made the suggestion to go ahead with 3 sprint races without any increment in the budget cap. Regarding the feasibility of the races on such tight budgets, Zak Brown made some comments.

“They then put forward doing more races and unfortunately, some of the teams still need to break their bad habit of looking for every opportunity to spend more money. So that created a problem late last year around the governance and voting that we need to go through to see what they proposed, or adopted,” Brown said.

“I think Formula 1 is taking a step back and going to come to us with a new proposal that will hopefully go through,” he added. “But it does point to the larger issue of, I still think, we don’t have the right balance. This also then ties to meetings of when things need to go put forward and get voted on and what’s in the best interests of the sport. We still at times have too many conflicts of interest that get in the way.”

The 2022 Formula one Pre-season testing is scheduled at 23rd February. This will be held in Barcelona. The first Grand Prix will be underway from the March 18th live from Bahrain.

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