Williams racing have been fined $25,000 following a procedural breach of Formula 1’s financial regulations, the sports governing body the FIA announced yesterday.
From 2021, the teams have been required to submit an interim account of their spending against the cost cap – which this year runs at $141.2 millions for the period between January and April by the end of June each year. Their annual spend must be reported by the end of the following March.
Williams had failed to hit the second deadline of 31st March 2022, with the FIA informing the team of their procedural breach the following month.
The British team accepted they had not obeyed the rules, with the FIA saying in a statement that the team explained the steps that they had taken in a bit to avert the breach.
As the breach was voluntarily disclosed by the team in advance of the deadline and fully cooperated in seeking a remedy, the Cost Cap Administration – a body created to monitor compliance of the financial regulations – offered the team an Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA).
This involved a commitment from Williams to remediate the breach by 7pm on 31st May 2022, pay a fine of $25,000 and bear the costs incurred by the Cost Cap Administration in connect with the preparation of the ABA. Williams accepted the offer and have since fulfilled the tree requirements.
Why is there a cost cap?
A cost cap was brought into F1 for specific reasons, to allow the small teams to spend the same amount as the big teams. It also looks like the cost cap will decrease each year until they (F1) are happy with how much teams are spending.
Jordan's F1 Blog 