Teams at odds over sporting penalties for budget cap breaches

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff says three F1 teams have taken a stance against applying sporting penalties for budget cap violations.

For the first time in the sport's history, teams are restricted this season to a $145 million budget. While there are financial provisions included in the rules to sanction teams that breach the cost cap limit, the plan is also to include minor sporting penalties and more significant ones.

But the teams have yet to agree on the definitive list of sanctions, with Red Bull, AlphaTauri and Ferrari reportedly opposing sporting penalties.

Wolff said the situation would likely be cleared up in the coming weeks.

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"A large group of teams, seven out of 10 teams, voted in favour of introducing sporting penalties for financial cap infringements," Wolff explained.

"At the moment, there are only financial penalties. And three teams voted against it, saying we'll take a financial penalty, but we don't want to have a sporting penalty.

"That's a bit odd. But I think the compromise that we have achieved now is to understand why that is, and which regulations do they feel are incomplete or uncomfortable.

"The target that we have set ourselves is a couple of weeks to sort it out, and then everybody understands that financial cap regulation infringements should be seen just the same as technical infringements in terms of sporting penalties."

This year's $145m budget cap - which was initially set at $175m, before the onslaught last year of the coronavirus pandemic – will fall to $140m in 2022 and then to $130m for 2023.

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