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How can teams adhere to a budget cap without laying off staff? There are two ideas gaining momentum, but one raises the old customer-car issue again

Autosport Magazine Jun 5, 2009, 4:44 PM

Structuring a budget cap in Formula 1 is a thorny problem. The biggest sticking point is the bigger teams' reluctance to make the mass redundancies that would be necessary to get them down to the capped figure. At the same time, F1 should not be making itself even more vulnerable to the whims of stockholders and board members of entities that are only incidentally involved in the sport - especially in the midst of an economic depression.

Something has to give, and negotiations continue between the governing body and the teams about that yawning gap between the two conflicting aims: drastically reduced budgets; minimal redundancies.