Does Ben Sulayem want to sign the death cessation of the budgetary ceiling in F1?

Does the president of the FIA, Mohammed Ben SULAYEM, want to question the budgetary ceiling of Formula 1? In any case, this is what certain remarks made on the occasion of the Miami Grand Prix last weekend suggests.

As a reminder, the budgetary ceiling was set up in F1 from the 2021 season, when the very first financial regulation of the discipline has entered into force. The principle of this concept is to limit the expenses of the stables, in a certain number of key areas linked to the sports competition, by fixing a total amount which should not be exceeded in a full year. The basic sum of this ceiling is $ 135 million (or 123 million euros) for a calendar of 21 events, but it is enhanced by 1.8 million dollars per Grand Prix which exceeds this limit. This means that with 24 GPs on the 2025 calendar, the ceiling for the current campaign is $ 140.4 million.

However, the budgetary ceiling does not include a certain number of significant expenditure stations, such as the salaries of the pilots or the salaries of the three best paid people within the stable management structure. However, it has been seen since its introduction as one of the reasons for the overall improvement in the financial health of the stables. From a situation where few of them came to balance a few years ago, most of them generate profits today, even if it is of course also necessary to link this to the renewed popularity of F1 as a whole over the same period.

However, the budgetary ceiling is not without posing problems and provoking some controversies. This was notably the case at the end of the first year of its application when, after a fierce struggle between Mercedes and Red Bull for the 2021 World title, it was discovered ten months later that the Austrian stable had spent more than expected. Sanctions had been pronounced at the time, but some judged that the time it had taken for the FIA ​​detecting the offense had offered Red Bull a competitive advantage difficult to catch up and highlighted the complexity of the task of verification and control.

Other subjects have appeared, such as feeling in certain actors that the budgetary ceiling tended to freeze the sports situations of the stables, the risk of seeing a stagnation or even a drop in wage conditions for employees taken into account in the ceiling or the extent of control for a body for limited resources such as the FIA, which must “fight” against stables structuring themselves more and more around financial and legal issues.

Recently, following the doubts issued by certain competitors on the way McLaren manages to manage his tires in the race, Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, issued the idea that – to avoid complaints deemed eccentric – a deposit could be paid by the applicant part. If the request is founded, the sum would then be returned to the stable but if it was not, the sum would not only be rendered but would also count in the budgetary ceiling.

It was in this context, on the side of Miami, that Mohammed Ben Sulayem was questioned on the subject. Displaying his support for this measure, he claimed “to study” At the same time the idea that this sum is part of the budget. “You just can’t accuse someone without a written complaint, and for this complaint, you must pay”launched the Emirati, even suggesting that the deposit could be $ 50,000.

Then, continuing on the file, he then issued reservations on the system of the budgetary ceiling as a whole. “I look at the budgetary ceiling and I see that it only complicates the FIA ​​task. So what is the interest?”he launched an hour before the Miami GP race, in comments reported by Associated Press. “I don’t see the point. I really don’t see.”

This is not the first shock declaration of the president of the FIA ​​in recent months since he had notably been the first to publicly relaunch the subject of the return of V10 engines in F1 last February.