BMW in favor of budget caps.

senna21 · Jan 14, 2008

Add another heavy hitter to the budget caps list.

Autosport

BMW motorsport chief Mario Theissen says he is in favour of introducing budgets caps to reduce costs in Formula One.

"Cost reduction certainly is desirable, we support that and have always supported that, and the idea of a budget cap I think it looks at a first glance quite attractive," said Theissen during the launch of BMW's new car in Munich.

"We should at least spend some time on evaluating how it could work - what would be the cap, what would be included and how to police it. I would certainly prefer a budget cap over a limitation in specific areas."

Theissen's comments come after a team principals meeting last week, when teams accepted calls from the sport's governing body, the FIA, to further cut costs in the sport.

In the Paris meeting, most teams showed support for the introduction of budget caps, which would be set at around the $120 million dollar mark.

Theissen said, however, that limiting wind tunnel use would not be the best solution to reduce costs.

"I think for various reasons it would not be the ideal approach," he said. "Firstly it would not be fair because all the different teams come from different baselines. Secondly it's almost impossible to police and thirdly I think the challenge is to spend our resource where you get the most performance.

"If some team decides to spend a lot of money on drivers, it should be possible that another team spends a lot of money on a computer.

"And then on top of that, if you really want to limit the use of expensive tools you should start with tools that are not common in F1, not with a tool that is already there with every team."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64672
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I'd love to see what the teams would come up with if they all were limited to $120 million. It kind of reminds me of the MIT robot in a box contests.

TCT · Jan 14, 2008

Budget caps would be next to impossible to manage for a sanctioning body.

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BMW in favor of budget caps.

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