Top teams pushed for delay of 'immature' 2021 regulations

F1's top teams pushed for a one-year delay of the sport's new regulation platform set to be introduced in 2021, citing 'underdeveloped' concepts and 'immature' rules.

The teams came together with F1's chiefs and the FIA last week in Paris for a final meeting destined to freeze once and for all Grand Prix racing's future technical, sporting and financial provisions.

However, with teams unhappy with several areas of the rules, they suggested a one-year delay of the regulations, but the implementation of F1's $175 million budget cap in 2021.

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But F1's chiefs apparently held their ground, dismissing an eventual delay and sticking to October 31 as the date when the 2021 regulations shall be officially set in stone.

"I think we’ve missed a bit of an opportunity," reckoned Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

"I think with hindsight we would have been better bringing the cap in first for ’21 and then taking more time to develop these regulations and evolve them and bring them in in time for ’22, so that any development that the big teams undertake would be under the umbrella of the cap.

"I think it’s impossible to bring that cap forward to 2020 because you will never achieve agreement on it.

"The budget cap is ultimately a sensible thing for F1 but the interim period of 2020 with the current regulations we have as teams build up for 2021, with unrestricted spend, makes it a very expensive year.

"An opportunity has perhaps been lost to have had that process more controlled under the cap, and delay these regulations and evolve them."

Horner admitted that there were some great ideas associated with the 2021 rules, but insisted that there were also areas that required more development.

"There is some great stuff going on, but the car and the concept looks very underdeveloped at the moment," he said.

"If another 12 months was taken to develop that concept and bring in something that works and perhaps addresses some of the other issues like weight and so on, I think that would have been perhaps a more beneficial approach."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was on the same page as Horner when it comes to the present underdeveloped nature of the rules.

"As Christian said, I think they are not very mature, the regulations will need some more input around the cost cap," Wolff said.

"In general it’s a situation that we need to see a ramp-up in resource, in the way things are being policed, on the financial side and on the technical side.

"This is something that we need to address and therefore I think that the idea of pushing it one year out looks logical and strategically well thought through, but it didn’t gain the traction and didn’t trigger enough appetite with the ones that decide."

Among the midfield teams, opinions on delaying the rules were split.

"Perhaps the sensible thing to be done, as Christian says, is to move the rules out so that you are faced with the umbrella of the cost cap when you’re developing for the new rules," said Racing Point's Otmar Szafnauer.

"I don’t know if that opportunity is completely gone but if it isn’t then it’s a sensible thing to do, because for us, we won’t be anywhere near the cost cap."

McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl hopes F1 sticks to its 2021 implementation deadline.

"I think our position is clear," said the German. "We like what is on the table now, what we have seen last week also, in terms of what’s coming in on the technical side, the sporting side and on the financial side.

"We're just waiting now for the 31st of October to see the publication of these regulations and we all know what we have to work to from ’21 onwards."

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