Haas team boss Guenther Steiner supports the return of F1 Sprint races this season but insists the sport's smaller teams won't "open a loophole" to allow its bigger rivals to enjoy a budget advantage.
F1 had planned on including up to six Sprint events in its 2022 schedule, but a dispute over compensation costs between Formula 1 and several top teams seeking a budget cap increase has undermined that plan, and a three-race sprint program is now being considered.
"One team in particular wanted a $5 million budget cap increase, which was just ridiculous, and had no rational facts behind it," revealed McLaren boss Zak Brown last month.
A budget cap increase would require a vote by all participating teams. However, because the vote would be conducted in the current year at short notice, it would require at least eight of the ten teams to rubber stamp the change.
Steiner has made clear that Haas would not support a budget cap increase as such a measure would be to the detriment of F1's smaller outfits who would be outspent once again by their larger rivals.
"At the end of the day, it needs to make commercial sense, it needs to make sporting sense," said the Italian, quoted by RACER.
"I’m sure there will be a proposal and if FOM says some people are opposed to the budgets then they decide against it.
"I don’t really know because I don’t dislike Sprint races if they happen, but if they don’t happen I don’t think the upside is so big that I will go and vouch for them."
Steiner says he'll trust F1 and its chief executive Stefano Domenicali to make a final call on the Sprint races' financial merits but insists Haas won't side with the big teams - or open any loopholes - to make them happen.
"I don’t really know how much (the upside) is, so I will leave that in the hands of Stefano to sort out, because for sure if it makes sense commercially and the fans like it enough, they will try to do it.
"But they are the promoter, we always work with them and try to be with them if we can do something better.
"But I’m not going out of my way so that the big teams get an advantage out of it because we raised the budget cap.
"I’m grown up as well about that. Why would we open a loophole here that means we are going back to the ‘good old days’ ?"
Asked whether he was frustrated by the big teams' incessant propensity to pull rank, Steiner admitted their attitude was simply par for the course.
"No, it doesn’t frustrate me, because it’s just what you do if you can," he said. "They are just doing what they can."
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