Christian Horner believes that the best way to reduce costs in F1 would be to allow smaller teams to buy their cars from the big teams, thereby altering forever the nature of Formula 1 as we know it.

Formula 1 (Liberty Media), the FIA and team bosses are currently trying to reach an agreement to set a consistent budget ceiling to allow smaller teams to cut costs next year, the Red Bull team manager believes the simplest solution would be to allow the smallest teams to buy F1 cars from the big teams.

According to Horner, being able to sell an already existing concept would not only reduce research and development costs but would also allow a levelling of performance between each team.

“I would have no problem in the short term, in a period of one to two years, saying to the smaller teams, ‘drop the research and development costs, you just need to be a racing team and we’ll sell our car to you in Abu Dhabi’. ” said the Red Bull Racing team boss at Sky Sports

“I think that would be the easiest way to be competitive at the lowest cost. We could sign up four teams. I’m thinking Haas, AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and probably Racing Point. 

“They try to copy the other cars every year anyway. If I were in the place of Alfa Romeo or Haas owners and I had the opportunity to buy a Ferrari, a Red Bull or a Mercedes, I would take it. ” concludes Horner.

Currently, the rules only allow certain parts, such as suspension, gearboxes and engines to be sourced from rival teams.

Many teams and fans alike are against the principle of so-called ‘customer cars’. But really, it is clear that Red Bull and Horner are attempting to preserve the financial gap between the top 3 (Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari). 

This week, the heads of the different F1 teams, the FIA and F1 have still not reached an agreement on the budget caps that will be introduced next year.

Bored waiting for F1 to start, treat yourself today

So far, the budget cap is limited to $175 million per season, but several teams are asking for it to be lowered to at least $130 million, which Ferrari and Red Bull are refusing to do.

In another interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian, Horner elaborated a little on the idea, trying to sell the concept further saying:

“Times change, things move. F1 used to have customer cars years ago. You could buy a car from March or from Ferrari and go racing,”

“We need to think out of the box rather than just going round and round, beating ourselves up about numbers. If this is all about saving the little teams and improving their competitiveness, it would be a very difficult to argue against the logic of a small team being able to take a customer car.”

Obviously, if the smaller teams do end up becoming mere customers of the top 3, then certainly we will be maintaining the status quo of ‘the haves’ and ‘have nots’ and no budget cap will be able to touch that.

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