One of the biggest anomalies of the budget cap due to be introduced next year is the number of items excluded from the cap.

Staff who work on the design, development and manufacture of the engines are excluded from the cap as are marketing staff, senior management and driver salaries.

However, a number of team bosses believe that as "performance differentiators", drivers should be included in the $145m cap.

"I'm definitely in favour of including the driver salaries within the cap because it forces teams to make those decisions," says Racing Point's, Otmar Szafnauer.

"Do you spend your money on a driver or do you take one that doesn't cost you so much and spend it elsewhere on performance," he added, somewhat ironic when one considers that one of his drivers is the team owner's son. "I'm in favour of having the salaries within the budget cap."

Asked if such a move might cause superstar drivers to look elsewhere, he replied: "I believe that even having the driver salaries within the cap their salaries would still be higher than what they would get at other racing series."

"Drivers are performance differentiators," said Claire Williams, "and in order to get a much more equitable playing field in this sport, as the financial regulations are there to do, then I think it's absolutely critical that anyone who is performance related should be part of that cost cap. I wholeheartedly agree with it.

"I think that the likelihood of drivers being discouraged from participating in our sport would probably be minimal," she added, "simply because this is the highest echelon of motorsport and it's a destination where drivers want to be racing."

"I have nothing against a driver cap or a driver salary cap, whatever you want to call it," said Guenther Steiner. "I don't see a problem for us in it because we are so far off it, whatever it will be. So, I'm not pushing it or anything but I think at some stage it will be a good idea to put it in the budget cap, because it's a performance differentiator.

"For sure, if you spend a lot of money on a driver then you cannot do other things," he continued. "That should level the playing field even more and I think the salaries would adjust by themselves and they would end up lower than they are now.

"I'm not faced with the problem, to be high in salaries because we are not even at the budget cap, so in the end, any of these proposals, I will be OK with it, so long as the amount is within some reason.

"The only point is that it would be a bit strange to exclude the highest salary of the team and not to include the drivers," said Frederic Vasseur. "If we are taking this direction we have to include everybody into the cost cap.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by elsiebc, 16/07/2020 15:18

"@ZJAY. Yes, they need to take the salary budget of the team and divide it equally among ALL who are employed. It is the only fair way. The guy wiping the car down between runs makes the car go faster just as Adrien Newey makes the car go faster. And they should take all of the teams' prize money and distribute that equally, too. There's no reason why the team that finishes last should be penalized, they did just as much work as everybody else. They just didn't have the privilege of having a fast car.

Sound stupid? Not when you realize that before every race they promote a proudly Marxist organization."

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2. Posted by ZJAY, 14/07/2020 22:18

"@ The Edge: Cheers. Thank you for saying it. Why should an executive have no cap but a driver or an engineer who use intellect or skill be capped. Why not make everyone everywhere in all of society earn same amount of money. That will be awesome. "

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3. Posted by The edge, 14/07/2020 19:32

"Without doubt the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. It’s up to the team to spend their budget wisely if they want to attract a top driver, there’s plenty on the grid that can win a championship in the right car. In fact it would be a far shorter list of about 2 or 3 that couldn’t, and they don’t even belong in this sport... their only there because daddies own teams

The stars who risk their lives should be free to earn as much as they can screw out of the capitalist state we live in... this is not 1920’s russia"

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4. Posted by USA1, 14/07/2020 19:23

"No way should drivers pay be included to the cap, if that is going to happen the sport will be doomed quickly, I still think you should have a budget cap on the car and leave everything else open for the teams as long as they stay within budget, may the best win !"

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5. Posted by BillH, 14/07/2020 19:16

"It would depend on who is paying the driver.

If the driver is employed by the team directly then the cap would work.

If the driver is an independent contractor paid by someone else (say a major auto manufacturer or vaping company) and contracted for say $1 per race... then that could leave things as they are.

"

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6. Posted by Rock Doc, 14/07/2020 18:17

"I was not sure why they weren't included in the first place. Makes total sense to me."

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7. Posted by Fambank, 14/07/2020 17:52

"The title is misleading. It should read "Some team bosses..." I doubt the bosses of the big 3, and Renault think this should be the case too."

Team bosses believe drivers should be included in budget cap

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