Interesting. You could argue that seeing Williams general improvement is an indicator that the cost cap is having some effect but feels like it will take at least 5 years of strict enforcement before the levelling out would be achieved.
Personally I feel that Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari still have too much sway here with engine supply and saleable parts (Haas/Alpha)
The reason the big teams will still have a major advantage for quite some time is because of the many tens of millions they splurged on updating their factories right before the capital expenditure portion of the cost cap kicked in. All the smaller teams couldn’t do that and were left stuck with whatever machinery and technologies they were already using.
The CapEx cap is around $36 million every 4 years. James Vowels was on the F1 podcast last week and he said he’s actively campaigning to get that number raised for a team like Williams, since that’s the only way to bring about real long-term change without actually waiting a decade. They’re still working with 20-year old tech in parts of the factory but they literally cannot update it, even if they have the funds, because of the capital expenditure limit.
Will definitely be intetesting for 2026 onwards when we have 4+ years of capped spending and at least 6 engine suppliers
What sucks about the cost cap is that all the teams started from where they were in 2020 in terms of facilities, infrastructure, tools, software, etc. James Vowles complained that he is having to spend capEx at Williams on things every other team already has, so he’s fighting an uphill battle both trying to get spend to get Williams on the same page AND to improve the car.
He said in a recent interview that capEx needs to be distributed like wind tunnel time for it to be totally fair.
