Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says he believes the team of the driver responsible for the accident should pay for the damage when he revealed the Italian team’s 2021 repair bill is now in the millions.
For the first time this year, Formula 1 teams are operating with a budget ceiling set at 145 million US dollars for 2021. For teams that have had to cut their budgets drastically to meet this requirement, claims accounting is particularly painful.
Red Bull estimated that Max Verstappen’s car suffered $ 1.8 million in damage after his controversial collision with Lewis Hamilton at the British Grand Prix, which, according to boss Christian Horner, will have “massive effects”.
READ MORE: The Cost Of The Crash: What Are The Effects Of Costly Collisions Under The New F1 Budget Cap Rules?
Binotto accepts that it will be difficult to find the perfect solution, but believes that there needs to be discussion about whether a team should pay damages if the driver is at fault.
“I think it’s worth discussing with the other FIA and F1 team principals in the near future,” said Binotto. “Of course, if you are not guilty, such damage in the budget cap is now an even bigger consequence.
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“Shall we add exceptions? I am not sure if that is the solution. I think it can be very difficult to be monitored by the police.
“But I think what we can consider is that if one driver fails, the driver’s team should at least pay the other teams the damage and repairs. That increases the responsibility of the driver. “
Charles Leclerc was knocked out by Lance Stroll on the first lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix, caused significant damage to his engine, and was completely written off – which means that if a fourth unit is introduced, he will incur a starting place penalty.
As a result, Ferrari’s repair bill for 2021 rose to 2.5 million euros, according to Binotto, although this figure applies to all damage, not just accidents.
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“That is total damage,” said Binotto. “Sometimes we can harm ourselves, so these are not” [just] other teams that harm ourselves.
“Of course there has been a lot of discussion that if there is an accident and there is a guilty driver and you have no fault, and if you have suffered damage, should that be exempt from the budget cap?
“I think that is certainly an important point because I mentioned 2.5 million euros to show that the damage can be significant overall. So should we consider a different type of regulation in these cases? I think there is certainly merit for that.
“I think there are certainly no obvious solutions, but we will no doubt be discussing this with the FIA, Formula 1 and the teams in the coming weeks, possibly to address it to see if there is a solution for the future . “
READ MORE: How Ferrari cleverly rebuilt its mediocre 2020 car into the much faster SF21
