Horner: F1 budget cap inflation increase still 'not enough'

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says the inflation-based increase to F1's current budget cap is "not enough" for the sport's big teams and "too much" for the smaller ones.

The cost cap was a main topic on the agenda of the F1 Commission's meeting on Friday at the Red Bull Ring.

In the past few months, the sport's bigger teams have lobbied for lifting the $140 million threshold, arguing that rampant inflation was eating into their budgets and threatening an inevitable overrun of the current cap.

Teams were initially awarded an extra $1.2 million allowance linked with the inclusion of a 22nd race on F1's 2022 calendar.

But Friday's discussions yielded an additional compromise by which F1's original cost cap has been indexed by 3.1% to help teams contend with global inflation.

The final number that the bigger teams are now allowed to work to this season is therefore $145.5 million. But Horner isn't entirely satisfied with the marginal increase.

"Is it enough? Not compared to inflation, and what it is today," Horner told Motorsport.com.

"It's not enough for us, and it's too much for the little ones. So it's a compromise, and a consensus was found in the end."

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Horner added that his team would nevertheless do "everything that it can" to remain below the new maximum expenditure level.

It came to light after Friday's meeting that nine teams out of ten had supported the 3.1% indexation number, with Alpine the only outfit opposing the new measure.

"I'm obliged to accept it because of the governance," said team boss Otmar Szafnauer. "Eight teams voted, and then it goes through. And now, that's the new rule, and we've got to follow it.

"It's difficult to start changing rules in the middle of the season. The FIA believed it was a compromise."

It was initially believed that Alfa Romeo had been the single dissenting voice, given team principal Fred Vasseur early opposition to a budget cap boost.

But the Frenchman felt that it was "important to find a deal" in Friday's meeting.

"A deal is always a compromise," said Vasseur. "If everybody was happy or everybody was unhappy, it means that it's a good deal!

"And at the end, we need to move forward and to find a solution. The situation is critical for everybody."

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