Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes the current financial crisis may result in Williams and Haas leaving the sport. As all the teams continue to squabble over the sport’s finances, Haas and Williams are hanging on by a thread. Schumacher advised Williams to consider Christian Horner’s proposition of customer cars to save the team from crumbling.
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Would Williams consider Horner’s idea?
The lack of racing due to COVID-19 has created a financial crunch for F1 teams. No races equal no payments from sponsors, which creates a major headache, especially for the smaller teams. To mitigate a part of the crisis, teams are proposing a reduced budget cap for 2021. Smaller teams want a lower cap at the $125M mark or lower. However, the bigger teams are against the change, resulting in a stalemate.
But F1 cannot afford to extend the financial debate any longer as it could have permanent consequences on the smaller teams. Teams such as Williams and Haas are barely sticking on in F1. Further delays or bad decisions could force the teams to walk away for good.
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George Russell (GBR) Williams Racing FW43.
Formula One Testing, Day 1, Wednesday 19th February 2020. Barcelona, Spain.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner suggested the idea of supplying teams with “customer cars” to reduce their financial woes. As per Horner’s plan, the bigger teams would give customer teams a year-old car that is fully developed. It would immensely reduce R&D costs but wouldn’t necessarily help teams achieve parity with the top 3.
However, Ralf Schumacher feels a “customer car” is Williams’ best option to survive in F1. Speaking to Bild, Schumacher said:
“A brilliant idea,”
“A team like Williams would be a lot further ahead if they just bought a Red Bull instead of trying to build their own car. It would also cost them less money.”
“If the season doesn’t start, I don’t know how Williams can survive. Or Haas, who as Americans tend to work according to the ‘hire and fire’ principle”.
“So it may well be that in the crisis they say they will leave Formula 1. By the way, I don’t just see problems for the small teams,”
Without a doubt, the W10 would be much faster than the Williams FW43. But it is unlikely for smaller teams to take such an extreme step unless things go really bad.
