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Podcast extract

Marussia consultant Pat Symonds on the unintended consequences of a budget cap in Formula 1

“If you have a budget cap and very free rules you’ll certainly get some innovation and you’ll get some great ideas. But what do you want? Do you want innovation? Or do you want good racing? I think the answer is that most people want good racing.

“If we have a very loose set of regulations there’s no doubt that some people will get it right and some people will get it wrong. If the budget is a sensible one then you’re not going to have the money to say ‘we’ve got it wrong, we have to do it all again’.

“You won’t be able to, you won’t have the money and you’re then locked into that performance for a year or so. That doesn’t lead to good racing. What leads to good racing is having rules that don’t change too often. The cars become more equal and then you get really good racing.”

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