Spending caps in F1 'don't work', insists Ferrari president

Amid rumours that Formula One's new owner Liberty Media is set to impose a new budget cap on team spending in the sport in a bid to improve competition, Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has said that he doesn't believe formal spending restrictions can ever work.

"The reality is Formula One is an extremely expensive sport," he told The Sun newspaper this week.

"Despite all these interventions by the FIA to try to limit spending, the teams have found other ways to spend," he pointed out.

“I accept the goal of reducing costs but much depends on us," he added. "I don’t believe a budget cap can work."

Despite a major team's budget believed to be approaching something in the region of £400 million per annum, Ferrari has still struggled for results in recent years. It endured a winless 2016 season despite the best efforts of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, and ended the year in third place in the constructors championship behind Red Bull Racing.

"If the budget was used well or badly, I don’t know," he admitted. "When I look at old reports — ten years and even further back — I deduce that Ferrari has never held back when it comes to spending.

"If I look at the last four of five years, we haven’t saved a euro, we have simply redistributed our spending to other areas.

"This is the old problem for all those who try to impose limits on car development: if areas are left open, spending concentrates in this area," Marchionne added.

"In principle, [a spending cap] is very noble, but the effect never ends up giving the necessary results."

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