Christian Horner believes Liberty Media need to push to get their blueprints for Formula 1’s future locked into place within the next couple of months, although he does think that this would be an ambitious target.
Liberty Media unveiled its plans for a cheaper and more exciting sport for the 2021 season and beyond in a meeting with all ten team principals on Friday, and Horner, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s team principal, says that while the plans are good, they need to be set in stone sooner rather than later.
“It needs to be done within the next couple of months, but that’s ambitious,” said Horner to Sky Sports F1. “There’s some big topics to deal with there: engines, budget caps and redistribution of prize fund.
“It’s ambitious but they’ve got to go for it. At least they’ve put a target down to say we want this nailed within a couple of months.”
Horner says that the planned regulation changes will have a bigger effect on those running at the front of the field, but those teams not running at the very front will likely be happy that plans are afoot to tighten costs and fairly distribute revenue amongst all teams on the grid.
“They are not keen to conduct all the negotiation through the media and this gives you the bare bones but the bottom line is this is going to have a much bigger effect on three or four teams running at the front of the grid,” added Horner.
“The guys from P4 downwards are potentially going to get a lot of upside. So you should see some fairly happy faces down that end of the paddock and some bigger challenges at this end of the paddock.”
With Aston Martin Racing CEO Andy Palmer tweeting his support of the engine regulation changes in particular, Horner says it is imperative that Formula 1 gets the spectacle right as well as bringing the cost of the sport down.
“You may have seen the CEO of Aston Martin’s tweet, he’s fully supportive of what’s just been announced,” said Horner. “There are manufacturers that are looking on the outskirts on F1, wanting to come in but the way that the way the regulations are currently written is that it’s prohibitive.
“The drawbridge is up, it’s a question of getting the drawbridge down, getting the costs down and getting the spectacle right.”
