Button backs Formula One budget cap

(GETTY IMAGES)

Formula One world championship leader Jenson Button has backed the introduction of an optional budget cap of £40m on teams from 2010.

"For the manufacturers and the bigger teams I'm sure they don't want that, but for teams like Brawn we need that for the future," the British driver told the BBC on Thursday. "It's the way F1 has to go in the times that we are experiencing."

The sport's governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) had earlier said the cap would be set £10m higher than first proposed although it was still barely a quarter of what some teams have been spending.

F1 is dominated by manufacturers suffering in the global recession from slumping car sales. Button's former team Japan's Honda has already pulled out and there are fears about others.

Teams want to cut costs but, despite outward unity, have different views on how best to go about it.

"For teams that are not manufacturers this is what we need," Button told the audience at the Sport Industry Awards for 2009. "For us and Williams and a few other teams we'll be reasonably happy with the decision - it's going in the direction that we need it to."

The FIA hoped all teams would accept the cap ultimately and said interest had been "extraordinarily high".