Former Mercedes director criticizes frontrunning teams for voting against a raised cost cap exception

Former Mercedes director and current Williams team principal James Vowles recently criticized several frontrunning teams for going against the proposal to introduce cost cap exceptions.

Ever since Vowles joined the struggling British team after leaving Mercedes, he has been raising his voice about how the development of certain departments should not come under the cost cap.

This is mainly because backmarkers like Williams simply won't be able to progress forward, specifically if their infrastructure is not updated to today's standards.

Speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, the Williams team boss explained how the backmarker teams were all for the cost cap exceptions, while the team principals of the frontrunning teams were against it and did not raise their hands in support for it during a meeting.

He said:

"Other teams will be hurt by the fact that we could put in millions while some are in different positions. Some don't have the money to spend it, some don't want to spend the money, and some are fearful of change. Aligning that in one room in the space of two hours simply is not possible."

He added:

"On every vote it wasn't a surprise on how it voted. When we spoke about who needs to catch up, on one side of the table was the teams at the back-end of the grid and on the other side teams at the front-end of the grid."

He continued:

"It'll be no surprise that everyone at the back of the grid near enough all unanimously had their hands up for most of these votes and the ones at the front and the grid did not."

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Mercedes team principal on how the cost cap exception discussion went haywire

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff recently explained how the discussion about cost cap exceptions went sideways. At first, Williams brought up the issue of how the team is unable to catch up with others due to its dated infrastructure.

However, once the cost cap exception figure came into the discussion, it kept on increasing, to the point where it was way too much. Hence, Toto Wolff was not happy about other teams consistently proposing a higher value.

As quoted by PlanetF1.com, Mercedes boss said:

“Why the CapEx discussion came up is that a team, Williams, said their infrastructure is sub-par and they wouldn’t be able to catch up with trivial things like machine equipment, and simulators, although simulators are less trivial things, but up to technical things like simulators."

He added:

"That was the starting point of all discussions," he added. "Then, as a consequence, some teams jumped on that bandwagon and said ‘Well actually, we would like to have a little bit more CapEx’. And that number went up from $50 million to $60 million, $70 million, $90 million, and suddenly, it was like free reign, and ‘Why don’t we change the CapEx levels?’ But there is no reason to do that, it’s $36 million."

As of now, there has been no official change in the cost cap rule. However, all the team principals, heads of the sport, and the FIA will soon come to a conclusion regarding it.