FIA's watered-down budget cap

The FIA has confirmed that it will introduced a budget cap in Formula 1 next year, but has raised the figure to £40m and exempted some of the costliest items of team expenditure.
The scheme will remain optional, with teams that accept the cost constraints being granted greater technical freedoms than those continuing to spend at will.The FIA published details of how the new regulations will work a day after its World Motor Sport Council met in Paris on Wednesday.
There are significant changes to the version passed by the WMSC last month, after concerns were raised that the proposed £30m was unrealistically low and the cap too all-encompassing.
Under the new plans the budget ceiling has been raised by one-third to £40m per annum and the list of exempted items dramatically expanded to include driver salaries, marketing and hospitality budgets, engine costs (for 2010 only) and “any expenditure which the team can demonstrate has no influence on its performance”.Previously FIA president Max Mosley had said the cap would cover “everything except the motor home (if the team has one) and any fines imposed by the FIA”, suggesting that the only way the salaries of drivers or star designers could be excluded would be for them to become shareholders of their team and be paid a dividend.
By confirming that the budget cap will be optional, the WMSC has chosen not to address concerns that it will create a two-tier Formula 1, with different regulations applying to different teams.The FIA previously said it would equalise performance between the two types of car by periodically adjusting the technical freedoms accorded to the cost-capped outfits, but the latest document gives no further details of how this will operate.
However, on leaving Wednesday’s meeting Mosley said he believed teams would be sufficiently attracted by the revised budget cap scheme that they would all choose to adopt it – thus negating the problem of a two-tier championship.“I suspect that when they see the figures, everyone will come in under the cost cap,” he told reporters. "I certainly hope so."
The cost-capped teams will be allowed to use movable front and rear wings – whereby downforce and drag levels can be adjusted around the lap – and will not be subject to an engine rev limit.They will also be permitted to carry out unlimited out-of-season track testing and restrictions on wind tunnel use will be lifted.The budget cap will be monitored and enforced by a new Costs Commission comprising a chairman and two other members, appointed by the WMSC for three-year terms.
One Commissioner will be a finance expert, another will have high-level experience in motorsport and the chairman will have “appropriate experience and standing in motorsport or sports governance”.
All three Commissioners will be independent of all teams.
The FIA says teams intending to compete in the 2010 world championship must submit their applications during the period 22-29 May, and are required to state at that stage whether or not they will adopt the budget cap.