Budget cap 'will bring us closer' - Fernley

Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley believes a budget cap in Formula 1 will make the midfield teams more viable even without changing their own financial status.

"It probably won't affect us at all – and probably won't affect half the grid at all if the truth be known," Fernley told RACER. "But what it will do is bring us closer. Would Force India be willing to have a go with a $30 million budget difference to the big teams? And the answer's yes, as opposed to the $230m difference that we've got today!"

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With Haas team principal Guenther Steiner revealing Liberty's planned time frame for providing the teams with a proposal, Fernley says progress needs to be made in order to allow any cap to be phased in over a period of time to make life easier for the teams with the biggest budgets.

"Yeah, I think they're working on that and hopefully will do so. We need to be delivering it this year – I think that's important. It looks promising that they're on target for that.

"I don't know [what the figure is going to be], there are different figures bounded around every now and then. But I think the main thing to do is get the presentation and the format of it and then develop it from there. Hopefully we can agree something in principle that can then be implemented.

"I'm sure that it's going to have to go on a glide path – I don't think for one minute that you can do it overnight. So we've got to be fair to the teams that have got to cut back."