James Vowles has called for the budget cap to be revisited, claiming that, as it stands, it has led to a two-tier grid.

Asked what he believes might enable the likes of Williams to break the stranglehold the big four teams have on the championship, the Williams boss didn't hold back.

"First and foremost, I own the mistakes that we made this winter," he replied, "and we need to detach that from that question.

"We have gone backwards," he continued. "We had a car that was overweight. But actually, when we did the cost cap, this is way back in COVID, when we had a phone call about it, there were three key tasks that we wanted out of it. We wanted long-term financial sustainability, and I think in that goal, not just have we achieved it, but we've exceeded it. This business now has good investment that allows us to go on, and they're businesses. They weren't businesses before 2021 at all.

"The two others, though, that went with it were sporting equity and, effectively, compression of the field, so effectively competitiveness that compressed together. Those are the three goals of cost cap, and those two have failed.

"There's a bit of statistics I was looking at about a month ago, which is the following: if I take the last 15 years of the sport, the five before, sorry, the five that we've been in as cost cap right now, currently the top four teams score 83% of the points. Before that it was in the 70s, just to be clear about it.

"In other words, we have made the situation worse, where the top four are the top four and all the rest of us are fighting over, ballpark, 17% of the points.

"Number of times on the podium used to be 10% of the time, now it's 5% of the time," he added. "I can give you a whole bunch of statistics, but the cost cap has made it worse, not better.

"I'm probably unique because - it's not a compliment - I went from the best team to the worst team," he said, referring to his move from Mercedes to Williams. "I think that's fairly clear.

"What I hadn't appreciated or realised when you do that jump is just how little exists," he admitted. "When you're in a cost cap, I'm not spending money on the car. I'm spending millions, tens of millions actually, just on basic systems, so you just know where a part is in the factory.

"That's not going to the car, it's not going to a front wing, it's not going to an upgrade. It's going on systems that I need to do just to do the very basics.

"So, we're caught in a cost cap trap, because if I do anything short-term, and I always talk about investing in the future, now you understand why. If I do anything that's about this year, I will slow myself down in the future, and I can't do that.

"We have a two-tier championship," he insisted. "That's not me telling you that. That is just what is on the table right now in terms of points score. And I think, and this is where we have to come together as a business, that's not right in terms of what we want for the future.

"We want the ability for, if we do a good job, we should have the ability to fight for that. Even last year, which was a great year, the gap on points between us and P4, between us and Ferrari, was 238 points. It's not a small amount. It's an absolute gulf, and we were on the podium three times.

"In cost cap, and I didn't appreciate it until I came into Williams, it really penalises you in terms of what you're doing. The solution isn't to take cost cap away. As I said before, we have a brilliantly financially stable sport now as a result of it, but we do need to think about what mechanisms we have in there to make sure we're all playing with the same tools and the same mechanisms, because today we're not."

"I believe the idea of the cost cap is very good," added Flavio Briatore, "but the administration we have with the cost cap is tremendous.

"At one point, I don't know if it makes sense to have one budget cap, whatever is the number. Others want the drivers included. In this moment, whatever is the number, maybe the big team have 300 million, 400 million, the small team have 250, 300, but put everything in the budget cap.

"With this, we don't have more, 'This is inside, this is outside, this is inside, this is outside'. At one point, I believe we need to decide what can we do with the budget cap. For me, the best is to put everything inside the budget cap, whatever is the number."

"That's definitely one direction to go in," greed Vowles. "The other point I forgot to make, which is relevant to this, is before the cost cap, Williams weren't spending really any money at all. So, I've, roughly speaking, tripled the expenditure.

"I don't know Flavio's numbers. I know roughly it's about the same thing. Force India didn't have any money. Aston Martin were putting in every penny they can towards it. So, it's a different environment, but still worse. The solution I think we need is something that anyone in this room can understand, which is either championship points-linked, because it gives you the scale, or championship position-linked, and a simple mechanism that allows us, over time, not next year, allows us to shrink in together."

"What we have to keep in mind is that before the cost cap, 2018, 2017, 2016, for sure the business in general was much worse," said Fred Vasseur, "but we had also five or six teams in bankruptcy or almost in bankruptcy. And it's not just the fact that the business is going well, it's the fact that we are sending the message that everybody can compete, right or wrong, but this is the message. And this is also attracting new investors and new OEMs in the business."

Having suggested points as a potential mechanism, Vowles was asked how this would work, in order that it differentiates between the potential of the team with what it's got and underachievement in terms of what's being delivered. In addition, is there a means by which one could independently and objectively evaluate facilities and such in order to allow that spending separately from points?

"There's a way of doing it, but it gets very complicated," admitted the Williams boss. "But if I put some numbers on the table, just to build a car that had four wheels pointing the right way with bodywork that roughly looked like a Formula One car is about 30% more expensive with myself compared to what I remember from a previous team.

"Inefficiency of tools, what you have on the external supply chain, there's about 100 things that add up to it," he continued. "So you could do it that way and say, 'Right, all of that money, fine, put that back in. You get a cost cap addition for it'.

"It's not transparent, it's not visible to the outside world, and that sort of thing concerns me. What you're more looking for is an amount to try and correct these issues that is not so much that you suddenly leapfrog to the front.

"You could have a bad year. So, it should still be that someone like Mercedes, if they do a better job, they should still win a championship. That's not what you're impacting. What you're trying to do is dig out, honestly, 20 years, in my case, of underinvestment that I can't really do in the cost cap. Let's get that back on the table."

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