Sergio Pérez puts it bluntly: “It’s unfair on the smaller F1 teams”

When the budget cap was introduced in Formula 1, the aim was to give the smaller teams a chance to compete on equal terms with the big teams. Yet a glance at the current World Championship standings shows that there is a huge gap between the top four teams and the rest of the field.

For Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez, this comes as no surprise. During his time at Red Bull Racing, he saw first-hand just how many resources the frontrunners in the field can deploy. And he knows that at his current employer, Cadillac, the development of the GP cars is handled quite differently.

The smaller Formula 1 teams lack efficiency

In Singapore, the driver from Guadalajara spoke about the differences: “We are quite obviously a new, small team. And I believe that the budget cap these days is unfair to the smaller F1 teams, because when I was at Red Bull Racing, we were introducing new features to the car pretty much every weekend.”

“The budget cap was never an issue. Back then, it was all about improving performance, and no expense or effort was spared to achieve that,” recalled the 36-year-old. He is certain this had to do with the efficient use of resources. ““If you’re in a smaller team, much more money is spent because the methods aren’t as clear and efficiency is correspondingly lower. That’s why the budget cap ensures that the differences become greater, rather than having the desired effect of narrowing the performance gap between the small and large teams.”

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