Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu reckons that “everybody” is against 2026’s planned cost cap offset for Audi to account for Swiss wages, stating that it risks opening a can of worms.
The higher average wage in Switzerland means that the current Sauber team operates at a theoretical disadvantage when it comes to funds available for development, assuming an equivalent-sized workforce to the teams that operate in the UK and Italy.
This has prompted the FIA to table an amendment to the 2026 cost cap regulations with the intent of accommodating Swiss wage data and cost of living from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
Komatsu revealed that the cost cap offset had not been finalised, largely because the nine other teams are against the move, and suggested that the FIA had taken a one-dimensional view.
“Why does a team based in Switzerland have an exemption? Everybody chooses where to set up the team. Between London and Oxford and north of England, prices are different,” Komatsu said.
“So where do you stop? Where you draw the line? And if you look at those things, you have to look at all the social benefits and everything, and also [for] people to live in Switzerland, the reasoning can be different, right?
“You know, I remember a long time ago trying to hire somebody from Sauber, but this guy loved the team, loved mountains. So he didn’t want to come to England. So all those things come into the equation.
“I think it’s very dangerous to look at one dimension and say, ‘Okay, it’s more expensive here’, you can just look at the price of a beer or something, and then saying, ‘Okay, it’s more expensive – therefore you should give an exemption’.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images
Having cited the variance of cost of living and average wage across different parts of the UK, Komatsu also noted the different economic situation in Italy, and contended that these should be factors as well.
He warned that the FIA may then end up creating further problems down the line with tweaks to the financial regulations, and implored them to keep it simple.
“In F1 Commission meetings, apart from Sauber funnily enough, everybody’s against it. So, I don’t know why FIA is just completely pushing for it,” Komatsu continued.
“Then you have to say, how about those guys in Italy? Ferrari, RB’s got some facilities in Italy as well. And also we have a half-Italian facility, half-UK facility, where do you stop?
“In terms of Italy, there’s a huge tax benefit for the first [four] years. It’s actually to compete for, like when Loic Serra went from Mercedes to Ferrari, right?
“I don’t want to use him as an example, but a senior engineer going from UK to Italy, there is certain financial big benefit in Italy. So are you compensating for that? Of course not.
“Unless you look at every single dimension, it’s very, very difficult to make it completely fair. Can you look at every single dimension? I don’t think so.”
“I don’t want to criticise the FIA too much, but you can see on other rules as well – sporting rules, like how we do these safety car times in qualifying, track limits, all those things.
“The more you regulate it by defining certain details, you’ve got to make sure you cover every single scenario, but the more you go in details, it goes more difficult to cover those, [you] create another problem, right?
“So if they say, ‘Switzerland exempt’, what’s next? It’s like this safety car time issue in the qualifying, and they did that, to try and to solve one issue in qualifying, out lap etc, but then created another issue. So for me, it’s so much better to keep it simple.”
