15 February 2023 , 19:54
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Stefano Domenicali is desperate to avoid a repeat of the budget cap fall-out which caused so much division within Formula 1 towards the end of last season.
Rumours emerged in the second half of the 2022 campaign claiming Red Bull and Aston Martin had broken the new budget cap rules the previous year. The FIA confirmed a few weeks later that the former had committed a "minor" overspend, while the latter's violation had been a procedural one.
The fact it took until late October the following year for those 2021 violations to be identified – and longer still for the FIA to decide and announce a punishment – was a bone of contention within the sport. Chief executive Domenicali wants the governing body to act much more quickly this time around.
He told Sky Sports: "For the credibility of the sport this kind of action, to check if everyone is respecting that rule, has to be done earlier than later. So we are discussing, and this is on the FIA's side to make sure that the control and the certification would be done much earlier.
"Because the effect on and if some teams will be out of it, has to be done in a proper way in as short a time as possible to be more credible. We see other sports that are taking the financial regulation with, in my opinion, too long time for a reaction and this is not good."
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Red Bull were slapped with a £6m fine for their overspend, but more of a punishment will be their 10% reduction in wind tunnel testing time this year. Team boss Christian Horner recently said it is "limiting significantly" their progress when it comes to developing their car.
The fall-out overshadowed last year's Mexican Grand Prix (Getty Images)It remains to be seen how much of an impact it will have on the team's results on the track this year. That is also something that Domenicali is keeping a close eye on, along with the rest of the F1 world.
The former Ferrari chief said: "It is a point on which I see there will be a lot of attention this year. I think that, first of all, we don't have to forget one thing that the step change of financial regulation in Formula 1 has been a step change in the governance of that sport.
"I was thinking that we could have even more problems to manage because the dimensions of the complexity, it is really huge. I'm pretty sure that everyone understanding now what is the effect, if there is something not going well in that dimension, that is new. So, I totally agree that the focus on these actually would be very big."