My point was merely that Toyota have serious problems with money management when they are achieveing less than Force India currently, perhaps also the strategists at FI are better than the Toyota ones?
So one technically-different race suddenly means Toyota are worse than Fifi? Last I checked, Toyota, while no longer at the sharpest end, still have a pole, podiums and points, while Fi broke into Q2 for their very first time at Monaco. Comparatively, Toyota's troubles
this year aren't any worse than McLaren's, or god forbid, BMW. Even Ferrari and Renault, who both appear to have improved substantially, have less to show for their money. Even the relatively-disappointing 2007 season was miles better than Honda's who, with a similar budget, managed to turn a previous race-winner into one of the worst on the grid.
With current conditions, the only thing a budget-cap will bring is trouble. I like the idea, and I suggested it for years in my F1 arguments, but there are too many problems to practically implement it in a sophisticated international sport like F1. Plus, for their money, Force India get nothing - I think it was TheCracker who commented that their bodywork is visibly poorly made, with imperfect surfaces... So long and nary a point to be seen, shoddy reliability, and poor showings in almost every aspect of the car's performance.
You also missed his point. His point was that under a cap, they'll keep spendin - they'll just hide it better. Even the smallest of teams are managed by smart managers, and their operations span the globe -
somewhere, there's got to be a place the FIA sniffers won't find. As soon as you place a cap, it becomes a game of hide and seek: Nit-picking over exact currency conversions, price of labor and materials, the exact prices of R&D... And of course, "random" events like Marlboro deciding to give Ferrari engineers a $10k reward every month, should they choose to cut their salaries by $10k a month. Engineers suddenly can all afford CAD stations at home, and for some odd reason, arrive at work full of ideas that were tested at, uh, the local university - and of course that fat wad of cash didn't come from the team, it was a gift by the sponsors!
Consider the controversy the diffusers caused, and then imagine the uproar when Renault discovers that Mercedes let McLaren spend some free time in their tunnel with a scale MP-4/25. Or that Ferrari was hiding a second operation in the Dallara tunnels (After all, Dallara were tasked with the F60's initial development, while Ferrari was busy fighting for 2008), and in reality spent $120m. How fun will it be when every result will be questioned - did the competitor
really pay just $25k for a chassis? Does spending $40m on special airflow-conditioning paint and gloss really constitute a justified expense for the sponsors (they want better paint!) and thus exempt from the cap? When you don't know if your championship leader is legal, or if even the last-placed team paid over the limit.