Team Principal of the Haas F1 Team Guenther Steiner has called for plans about a potential cost cap in Formula 1 by the midway stage of the 2018 season.
Steiner is eager for the plans to come sooner rather than later, with the team having stated their intentions for expansion in the following few years. However, it is currently unknown if a cost cap would limit staff numbers.
“We’ve already started this process at about mid-season when we discussed we were still up and down and needed to settle,” Steiner said.
“At the moment we want to stop because we want to see what Liberty Media comes up with for the cost cap.”
“Why would we grow a team for one or two years then to dismantle it again? That is never good.”
Steiner went onto explain that he would rather have proverbial “growing pains, rather than the pain of letting people go.”
Several big names in the sport – such as Scuderia Ferrari and current champions Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team – have threatened to leave the series over the direction Liberty Media are looking to adopt in the near future, and Haas are keen to know where they stand before they make wholesale changes.
“With the cost cap coming in we don’t really know where to go and at the moment I don’t want to grow any bigger after our next step. Once we know where the sport is going then we can react but there is no point to react now and then counter-react a year later.”
“It is only three years a way, but next year will go and if you recruit again after that, it is for 2019 and you might need to go smaller a year later. We need to know the direction of the sport.”
However, Steiner sympathised with the sport’s owners, saying that it is “very difficult” to get all the current team’s backing and agreement.
“I think Liberty is working hard at it. It is very difficult to get 10 teams who are different in their structures, ambitions and why they are in the sport to get them together on common ground,” the former Jaguar Racing managing director noted.
“I think they will work diligently, and I hope by the middle of next year, we’ll have some answers.”
