Red Bull legend Adrian Newey has revealed that major changes to the sport in recent years have resulted in a hidden penalty.
Newey is a legendary designer in F1 and has designed a heap of championship-winning cars throughout his career, so much so that he was in huge demand when it was announced he would be leaving Red Bull last year.
The new regulations that are on the way add to major changes made to the sport in recent years, including the introduction of a cost cap, which is designed to level the playing field in the sport by limiting what teams can spend each season.
However, in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Newey claims that whilst he agrees with the concept of the cost cap, its introduction has bred a major problem.
"I fully agree with the cost cap though it does come with a lot of hidden penalties one of which is that it actually means Formula 1 is no longer the best-paid industry," he explained.
"So for instance at Red Bull we started, if we lost people, it would almost be to another Formula One team now we're losing people to tech
companies because they pay better.
"We're losing people to WEC teams because they pay better, we're struggling to get graduates because Formula 1 can't afford to be the best-paying industry anymore.
"So it has unexpected penalties to it but what it does mean is that you've effectively now got an engineering budget and therefore the fear that spending more will mean you'll disappear is theoretically disappeared at
which point surely you free up the regulations rather make them ever more restrictive but unfortunately it's not what's happening."