Such is the financial clout of the manufacturer teams that despite its many titles and rightful legend status, Williams would have to be considered one of the have-nots of the current era.

Though not as financially challenged as the likes of Force India or Sauber, far less Manor, the Grove outfit can only dream about the spending power of Ferrari which is thought to have around three times the budget of its British rival.

No wonder therefore that Claire Williams welcomes Liberty Media's talk of a budget cap, and admits her team would vote for such a proposal in a heartbeat.

"Liberty have talked about trying to bring distribution of income to a much more equitable level in order to make sure we have a sport that thrives and is sustainable into the future," she told the SPOBIS summit in Germany.

"Williams is an independent team and our budget is around the mid-point among other teams in our sport," she admitted. "For us in the middle, it gives us quite an exciting future because if they do bring about a more equitable distribution of income, obviously we will benefit from that.

"We are a team that is able to thrive at that mid-range whereas bigger teams might have to compress what they do," she continued. "Maybe make people redundant if they put a cap on the number of employees or put a cap on spending through budget caps. So we're looking forward to getting round the table and having those competitions."

Of course, we've been down this road many times before, and every time it has ended in stalemate. While everyone appears to see the sense in curbing the spending arms race, the big teams see no reason why they should have to come down to the levels of their (smaller) rivals. Indeed, fearing the impact such a move would have on their competitiveness, last time around Red Bull and Ferrari threatened to head off and start their own series.

There is already talk of renegotiating the various bonus payments, including that which sees Ferrari walk away from the table with more money than the world champions, but already the Italian team has warned that it will not take such a move lying down.

Fact is budgets and prize money are a veritable minefield, and while one can fully empathise with the likes of Williams, certainly Fore India, Sauber and Manor, the big guns will not relinquish a penny without a major fight.

As far as this aspect of the sport is concerned, Chase Carey and Co might soon be finding out that the honeymoon is over.