SEPANG, Malaysia, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Williams are caught in a "cost cap trap" that forces them to spend millions on basic factory systems rather than car development, team principal James Vowles said on Friday, calling for changes to Formula One's financial rules.
Teams have a limit for spending on performance-related activities each season, with the cap at $215 million for 2026.
That, said Vowles, has created a "two-tier championship" where the top four teams — Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari — have actually tightened their grip, rather than levelling the playing field.
"Cost cap has made it worse, not better. I'm probably unique because - it's not a compliment - but I went from the best team to the worst team," said Vowles, who has the unique perspective of moving from championship-winning Mercedes to struggling Williams.
"What I hadn't appreciated or realised when you do that jump is just how little exists. When you make a cost cap, I'm not spending money on the car, I'm spending tens of millions just on basic systems just so you know where a part is in the factory.
"That's not going to the car, that's not going to an upgrade. It's going on systems that I need to just do the basics, so we're caught in a cost cap trap," he added at a press conference.
Vowles said statistics backed him up, with the top four teams scoring 83% of available points over the past five years under the cost cap regulations.
"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 17% of the points," the 47-year-old said.
Williams finished fifth in the teams' standings last year, 261 points behind Ferrari, which Vowles described as "an absolute gulf" despite podium finishes.
However, he said the solution was not to scrap the cost cap entirely as the sport was financially stable as a result.
"But we do need to think about what mechanisms we have in there to make sure we all play with the same tools and the same mechanisms to be able to make things better," he said.
Williams are ninth in the standings this year with 12 points and Vowles admitted that they have "gone backwards".
"The reality is we're too far away, which is what I was fearful of, and it's still exposing those weaknesses. Those will not be addressed this year."
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Sepang; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
