Brawn promises severe sanctions for budget cap breaches

Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn has promised severe sanctions will be enforced for teams who breach the new financial regulations from 2021, saying the rules “have teeth”.

F1 officials confirmed plans for an overhaul of the sport’s rulebook for 2021 on Thursday, introducing a set of financial regulations for the first time that includes a cost cap of $175 million per year.

The cost cap has been seen as one of the big areas in which F1 can try and limit the spread in performance through the field, as well as making the sport more sustainable for teams.

Speaking about the introduction of the financial rules for 2021, Brawn said they were not like the previous Resource Restriction Agreement in F1, promising there would be severe penalties for those in breach.

“I think the crucial thing about the financial regulations now is that they’re part of the FIA regulations. So the sanctions from breaching financial regulations will be sporting penalties of some sort, depending on the severity of the breach,” Brawn said.

“Whereas before, if any of you remember, we had the Resource Restriction, which was a gentleman’s agreement between teams - well, there’s not many gentlemen in the paddock I’m afraid, and that was a failure.

“But this has teeth. If you fraudulently breach the financial regulations, you will be losing your championship. So it has serious consequences if teams breach these regulations.”

Teams will be required to submit their 2021 financial data in March 2022, with Brawn saying the review would be conducted by a mix of FIA, F1 and external experts.

“We’ve tried to capture really the things that make the competitive difference between the teams, and the areas where they can spend money and gain a competitive advantage, we’ve tried to control those areas,” Brawn said.

“We’ve got a very strong team of financial experts within the FIA and within Formula 1, and we’ve sought outside support on this. Deloitte have been involved, Deloitte are one of the experts in sports finances, they’ve been very involved with the football world, and you can see the effect that is now starting to have on football, the positive effect it is starting to have.

“We have had a very strong group of experts, and that will continue. We’re not going to stand those people down, they’re going to continue to help introduce these regulations and develop them.”