Formula One’s proposed budget cap of $200 million (Dh735 million) per year has been received with mixed feelings and the distinct suspicion that some of the better-off teams will underhandedly skirt around it to their benefit.

Their subterfuge, however, could well massively favour a whistle-blower, with guaranteed anonymity, who exposes the offenders only too ready to gain an unfair advantage due to their deep pool of ready cash.

That would be to the tune of $1 million, the reward promised by Bernie Ecclestone to the informant, an F1 insider or not, who secretly leaks to the sport’s kingpin that his orders are being surreptitiously disobeyed.

In the past it has been nigh impossible to police such a budget restriction and that has prompted Ecclestone to offer his reward to anybody who can provide evidence of cheating by any team, no matter how big a reputation it has.

Tentatively, all the grand prix teams have bowed to Bernie’s and the F1 rulemakers’ cash cap edict, even if the likes of massive spenders Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Mclaren would much prefer to be free to outlay what they like — and that, for most of the regular front runners, has been upwards of $250 million annually.

But, with some seven outfits — outlaying little more than $60 million each — struggling to survive, the budget cap is a move towards slowing down the runaway big boys with their unlimited resources.

“The plan under consideration is to give one million to any whistleblower whose knowledge and information proves to be accurate,” said Ecclestone.

And he threatens: “We will say to the team at fault that in the following year you will lose three points off the maximum points you have scored. Then let’s see if they still want to cheat.

“We have agreed the budget cap should be $200 million. And it is going to happen. What has not been agreed is what the $200 million limit should be used for. “Unless we include everything, I am sure the teams will find ways around it. So it is going to be very difficult. But we are determined to see it through for the benefit of the sport.”

Not entirely in favour of the budget limitations are McLaren’s Sam Michael Red Bull’s Christian Horner, whose wonderboy driver Sebastian Vettel has won the last four world titles.

Red Bull’s spending has topped $250 million a season and Horner feels that just when new regulations, especially with different engines, might prove to be costly, the teams should be left to their own devices.

And Horner remarked: “It’s a bit stupid talking about controlling costs when we are inflicting ourselves with the most unbelievable cost hike the sport has ever seen. The cost of the new engines is ridiculous and I don’t know how the little teams are coping.”

His observations will not have best pleased Ecclestone, whose high regard for Horner and his achievements have been unashamedly hailed.

Maybe not any more.

— The writer is a motorsport expert based in the UK