Ferrari forced to compromise over budget cap "soft landing"

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has revealed the Scuderia was forced to accept a compromise over the "soft landing" procedure within the budget cap that assists with the future employment of its staff.

With teams operating on a budget of $145million from next year, sliding towards $135m from 2023, it has meant employees being reallocated to alternative positions within the company.

As the three teams with the highest numbers of staff, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull have been offered an additional period of time - a soft landing - to ensure other jobs are found within a six-month time period, commencing from the start of 2021.

Ferrari had pushed for longer, in particular, as it is evaluating other race series such as IndyCar and LeMans.

"As Ferrari, when we have been discussing the budget cap, we have been very vocal on the fact it would have meant a lot of reduction in terms of team organisations and members," said Binotto.

"We said we felt [we had] a very strong social responsibility, and that it was somehow a wrong move towards the people, because in such a period – pandemic, Covid – people losing their jobs was wrong.

"So what we simply asked [for] was a soft landing. It has been ourselves to ask it and to obtain it, a soft-landing mechanism where we had time as a company to reallocate people in other jobs within our company.

"Simply, that gave us six months’ time – I have to be honest, we asked for a bit more but that was the compromise – so we’ve got six months’ time from the end of the year to reallocate people in different jobs."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has also confirmed his team is evaluating other projects outside of F1.

"What we’re seeing, as we inevitably delve deeper into these regulations, they have a much bigger effect on the top three teams than they will for the teams that are already operating below the cap," said Horner.

"But what’s been exciting for us is to look at projects that will soon be announced, that we’ve won with external clients, where we will be taking on different work and different workstreams in different categories.

"We have obviously designed the Valkyrie car over the last four years, and we’re looking at other options where we can utilise the skill set and talent that we’ve acquired in Formula 1 in other projects.

"Obviously, the regulations do have a fundamental impact on the teams and, of course, that cushion, as it were, for 2021 does offer a soft landing, particularly for Ferrari who pushed so hard for it."

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