Christian Horner has admitted that it has been challenging for Red Bull to work under the new budget cap introduced into Formula 1 for the 2021 season. Following the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, regulations were brought in to curb the costs that teams face in order to make the sport more sustainable. For the bigger teams such as Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, this has meant significantly cutting their costs to meet the budget cap and this has proved to be a difficult task, according to Horner. "It’s been a significant challenge, but I think the whole organisation has responded incredibly well," the Red Bull team principal told RacingNews365.com among others. "It’s been about addressing efficiency, which Formula 1 teams haven’t been particularly great at in prior years. "I think the challenge is significant, it’s ongoing, but it’s been well embraced. Obviously we’ve driven efficiency through internal capacity in terms of not outsourcing components, and I think we’ve seen significant reductions. "But it’s been a challenge and will continue to be a challenge to get there. But I think as a discipline for Formula 1, it definitely has a serious impact on the costs." Whilst the new regulations have posed a challenge for the larger teams, others have embraced the budget cap. McLaren's Andreas Seidl is open about the fact that the Woking-based squad were keen for the financial cuts to be brought in in order to secure their future. "It’s not a secret that we were welcoming this budget cap coming in this year, because it ensures, for a team like McLaren, that we can do Formula 1 in the future in a sustainable and competitive way," Seidl explained. "Our people worked quite hard the last 12 months in order to get ready for the budget cap coming in, because even for us, it means a reduction of costs being required. "The focus is clear, we want to protect as many jobs as possible, we want to protect the size of the team, because in the end, the people make the difference in this sport. So we really focused on trying to find where we can save costs and where we can do things in a more efficient way. "That’s still a process that is ongoing, but I’m really happy with the steps we could put in place. I feel ready for it as a team, and quite optimistic now looking ahead for the budget cap coming in, because it brings us to a level playing field with these big spenders next to me."
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