Scuderia Ferrari is in the process of transferring several members of its F1 team to the Haas team to join as official members, to help it comply with the next budget cap introduced by Formula 1 from the 2021 season onwards.

Starting this year, Formula One introduced a budget cap of $145 million per season, forcing the sport’s biggest teams to reduce their staff to comply with the regulations.

However, to avoid redundancies, Scuderia Ferrari will use its technical partnership with the Haas team to ‘re-staff’ some of its employees, and although they will still be based in Maranello, they will work in a unit dedicated to the US team.

“These people will be in Maranello in a building completely separate from the Scuderia Ferrari,” explains Mattia Binotto, Ferrari team manager.

In an effort to mitigate the expected cries of ‘cheating!’ he maintains that “They will not have access to the Scuderia Ferrari building. They will be separated and they will stay there.”

Binotto continues: “As far as we are concerned, they are customers. Some of our employees will be joining their team, and I think this is a great opportunity for them.

“It’s a great opportunity [for Haas], because I think that by doing this, it can strengthen their organisation and their technical organisation. 

“This is something that was necessary for us, because we had to reduce our organisation to keep within the budget cap. 

“But Haas remains a completely independent team from Ferrari. It’s not a junior team, we don’t exchange information beyond that of what is possible in the regulations.”

Binotto admits that he would much rather have to transfer some of his staff to a “partner” team than have to lay off people.

“It’s a great opportunity [for Haas], because I think that by doing this, it can strengthen their organisation technically. 

“This is something that was necessary for us, because we had to reduce our organisation to keep within the budget cap. 

“But Haas remains a completely independent team from Ferrari. It’s not a junior team, we don’t exchange information beyond that. of what is possible in the regulations.” assures the Ferrari boss.

Preferring to have to transfer part of his of its staff to a “partner” team, rather than having to dismiss people at the risk of having them join opponents directly.

“If I can choose and I have to downsize my organisation, I am certainly happier to know that these guys are joining the Haas team and strengthen them, rather than simply being on the market and therefore available for other teams.

“This is certainly how we see collaboration. ” concludes the Swiss-born manager of the Scuderia Ferrari. Among the employees who have joined the Haas team this season, the former head of engineering and chassis at Ferrari, Simone Resta.