Picture from Red bull content pool

F1 News

Tost believes no loopholes will be available in budget cap

Tost believes no loopholes will be available in budget cap

17-10-2018 15:12

Franz Tost, a long-term ambassador for the budget cap, says it's "nonsense" to suggest the cap will not be too hard to police. The budget cap is forecast to hit teams in 2021 when Liberty Media stage their overhaul.

Some have suggested teams will be able to exploit loopholes in the rules helping them step around the financial barriers. Tost, the Toro Rosso advisor, suggests this statement is rubbish as F1 has a track record of controlling things correctly.

"I have been fighting for years for a budget cap, and it is coming now hopefully," Tost told Autosport.

"There we always arguments that you cannot control it, which is nonsense. You can control everything. The FIA, and FOM, whoever, just have to start [thinking] from the beginning onwards about how to control it."

"If I decided, I would send to every team a person to control all the financial statements every week or every month. That's it. Like now, for example, on the technical side, you can control everything. We are not even allowed to test without passing crash tests and all this kind of stuff. So why you shouldn't you be able to control [budgets]? This is nonsense, you can control everything if you want."

The cap should help close the gap between the leading three teams [Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull]. Currently, the championship is clearly split into two. Renault who hold the 'best of the rest' spot are 227 points behind Red Bull.

In some ways, the sport is lucky to have Hamilton fighting with Vettel. Without that, a lot more people would turn off.

We'll see how it unfolds.