FIA vice-president Robert Reid thinks there is too much talk about the budget limit and wants to wait for Monday – financial regulations need to settle in
Tomorrow, Monday, the FIA will finally publish the results of the budget limit analysis, but until then there is “too much talk” and “wild speculation” about it for FIA Vice President Robert Reid. The issue had boiled over in Singapore, with Aston Martin and especially Red Bull pilloried for alleged overspending.
For the FIA, blackening the names of the teams among themselves is not a good practice. “The unfortunate thing for me is that there has been so much speculation, and wild speculation at that,””And that has led to situations where possibly even reputations have been damaged. That is unfortunate. There was too much talk.”
He plays down the impending decision: “Monday will come and go, and I am sure we will quickly turn to next year’s analysis. And we’ll see what comes,” Reid said.
Wait for Monday
“Personally, I don’t know the numbers. It is a process, we have a department that is looking into it, they will do different steps in the process. If there are any violations, I think everybody knows how those violations – minor and major – are classified.”
“The regulations are there for everyone to see. We’ve already had the Williams situation so everyone understands what would happen or what the next steps might be if there is a procedural error.”
Whether mistakes were made on the part of the teams or the line was even crossed, he himself doesn’t know, “but let’s just wait and see and then deal with it in due course.”
Reid stresses that the most important finding on Monday will be whether the new financial regulations actually work as they are supposed to: “It has to work,” he says. “There is a process. As far as the regulations are concerned, it’s still very early. You just have to look at how many changes there are in the technical and sporting regulations of Formula One all the time. “
First real attempt
“I think that everything new has to be optimised first.” This means that, according to him, some unintended consequences might arise from the formulations first. “That’s the classic,” Reid says.
“If you push the balloon down here, it will go up in another place that you might not be aware of. We had a trial run in 2020, so this is our first real attempt. “
He says even today there are situations in the sporting arena that have not been there before. “And how long has this sport been around now? I’m sure we’ll see the same – not only for the analysis of 2021, but also in the future.”
“It’s a complicated set of rules, so it’s a complicated process to get to,” Reid said. “But I think everyone agrees that it’s absolutely vital for the future of the sport that we have some control over costs. “
Confidence in Federico Lodi
He has confidence in Federico Lodi, the former Toro Rosso finance chief who is now head of finance at the FIA. “I mean, that’s his job,” he says. “He takes care of it, he did all the analysis. It’s his department that created all this.”
“However, the teams had a big part in creating the regulations. And we all work together because there is a common goal that we have to get it right. “
The FIA was actually due to publish the results in June, and Reid hopes that the FIA will be able to complete the analysis earlier in the future. “But the clarifications that are made in the 2021 results obviously apply to 2022 and 2023.”
“According to the laws of physics, we narrow down the area that we can investigate. There is a huge part that is absolutely clear and clearly within the cost cap, or clearly outside the cost cap. And the grey area will hopefully get smaller and smaller as we move forward. “