Seidl sounds the alarm: 'Many teams are forced to go over budget'.

With rising global inflation and price increases on raw materials, the budget ceiling in Formula 1 seems unsustainable. McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl fears penalties for several teams who go over budget this year.

It has been decided that the budget ceiling will be increased by 3.1 per cent this year to cope with rising costs. It seems that no team is really happy with this decision of the FIA. The teams that wanted more money don't think it is enough and the teams that were against an increase in the budget ceiling are obviously not happy either. Despite the increase it will be difficult for many teams to stay within their budget this year.

Motorsport-total.com Seidl asks what the worst case scenario would be if the budget ceiling is not raised. Seidl: "I think six or seven teams would go over budget. That would be a violation of the rules and would result in an appropriate punishment." What that penalty entails cannot be deduced from the FIA's regulations and it also appears difficult to determine. The most likely course of action would be to determine after the season which teams had gone over budget and to devise an appropriate penalty in view of the extent of the overspend.

It doesn't look good for McLaren either. According to the team boss, the team is going 'quite' over budget on the current way. The team is facing huge costs that have little to do with normal inflation, but rather the price of electricity and the price of transporting equipment around the world. Seidl is reluctant to give an exact figure, but the team boss says it will be an overspend of several million.