Formula 1 may sit at the top of the motorsport world, but it risks losing some of its brightest engineering minds due to financial constraints.
Blake Hinsey, a former Red Bull engineer, believes the budget cap is at the heart of the issue.
"Just had a loose conversation with a recruiter about a F1 race engineer gig," he posted on social media.
"Their maximum salary was less than I was making last year as a part-time performance engineer in WEC on a LMDh team."
Hinsey, who still has no desire to commit to F1's gruelling 24-race calendar, suspects teams are not lobbying to increase the cap because they are benefitting from the situation.
"Because the teams that are profitable, it's likely the bosses and shareholders can pocket a chunk of whatever they don't spend," he claimed.
"It infuriates me that FOM, FIA and the teams themselves are f*cking over the sport, including a large number of my friends."
Intriguingly, Adrian Newey, the highest-paid engineer in F1, shares the same concerns.
"One of the consequences of the budget cap is that F1 is no longer the highest paying branch of the industry," he told Auto Motor und Sport in Germany.
"At Red Bull, when we lost an employee, they would go to another F1 team. Today, if you lose an employee, they will most likely go to a technology company because they pay better."
