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The explosion in Formula 1's popularity over the past five years has been described by some as a unique phenomenon in sports history.
Beyond the labels, one of the key factors that has made Formula 1 such an attractive proposition for manufacturers is its profitability. This cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the introduction of a budget cap, which in 2021 put a brake on escalating team expenditures, limiting them to $145 million, before an anticipated increase to $215 million with the new regulations for the 2026 season.
Immediately prior to the cap's implementation, the best-funded teams – Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull – were spending over 300 million euros annually. The introduction of the limit meant that, almost automatically, teams and especially manufacturers began generating surpluses, transforming the championship into a perfect showcase for new entrants like Audi and Cadillac.
Considering this precedent and following what they believe is a logical path, MotoGP's senior management – including one of its most influential executives, Carlos Ezpeleta, who serves as Sporting Director – is determined to pursue the same strategy, which he believes would benefit everyone.
"From the organization's side, we absolutely want to introduce a budget cap, and we've been very clear with the manufacturers on this. It's important to bring a degree of rationality to how we do things," Ezpeleta stated in an extensive interview with motorsport.com, while also acknowledging the complexity involved in such an ambitious change of direction. "It will be very difficult to achieve. It's also very ambitious because manufacturers are extremely connected to their factories, and they all have different realities, different origins, and different organizational structures. This is something we need to explore, but where there's a will, there's a way." "I'm sure we'll get there. We've never had a budget cap in MotoGP because there's never been a need for one," Ezpeleta added.
The realities of Honda and Aprilia, respectively the biggest and smallest spenders, could hardly be more different. Honda spends around 80 million euros on its MotoGP operations, while Aprilia's budget is approximately a quarter of that amount, around 20 million euros.
Paradoxically, this gap currently separates them on track, but in the opposite direction to what their respective investments would suggest. Aprilia leads the constructors' standings, with three of its riders at the top of the overall classification. Meanwhile, Honda's top representative, Luca Marini, is only in 10th place, and the company is second to last in the constructors' standings, ahead only of Yamaha, which is the second-largest spender at around 60 million euros. For Ezpeleta, this is one of the key differences between Formula 1 and MotoGP.
"There's one caveat that I think is very important: we don't have a problem on track. We're now seeing that some of the manufacturers with lower budgets are performing better than the others," he emphasized.
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