The bottom line

After an era when top team budgets had spiralled to as much as $400 million per year, Formula 1’s cost cap finally came into effect last year and, rather predictably, controversy wasn’t far behind with Red Bull and Aston Martin falling foul of the rules last season.

On the Thursday before the Japanese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was keen to point out that Red Bull was bringing performance upgrades throughout the 2021 season at a rate Mercedes felt it couldn’t match because of the cost cap. I do wonder if there’s an element of Lewis and Mercedes stirring the pot because the reality is that towards the back end of last season, the Mercedes was the faster car. Mind you, given the fact that Lewis had the championship pulled from under his feet, you can’t really blame him, or them.

So I spent the flight to Japan digging into the 54 pages that define the financial regulations and thought I’d share some of the things I learnt in this column.