Gene Haas Worries About F1 Going ‘Socialist’ By Redistributing Income

One of the biggest knocks against Formula One is its lack of parity. One potential way to combat the problem is by redistributing income, but that’s an idea Gene Haas doesn’t seem too fond of.

Yet it’s precisely what could happen once the Concorde Agreement runs out in 2020, according to Motorsport.com

As principal owner of Haas F1 Team, the sport’s youngest team, Haas certainly wouldn’t complain about receiving a bigger slice of the F1 pie. Still, he doesn’t think it should come at the expense of teams that have spent decades at the top of F1, such as Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG Petronas.

“Since we’re the newcomers in this business, our revenue stream from Formula 1 is nothing,” Haas said, via Motorsport.com, “so anything we get will be greatly appreciated.

“But I think we just have to be very very careful in how you redistribute the wealth because there are some teams at the top that have spent 50 years doing this, that have earned some entitlement to how the costs are distributed.”

The key, according to Haas, is for Liberty Media, F1’s new owners, to make sure success and reward remain mutually exclusive.

“You can’t just arbitrarily redistribute that because, quite frankly, winning races should come with rewards, and it should not be a socialistic-type structure,” Haas said, via Motorsport.com.

Haas does have a point — although, at times in his remarks, he seemed to forget what that point was.

“I’m not saying that the teams at the bottom don’t deserve more, but I’m still saying teams at the top deserve more,” he said.

We’re not sure exactly which side of the fence Haas truly resides on. But, personally, we’d love to see some of F1’s midfield teams be given the resources they need to put up a better fight.

Thumbnail photo via Sam Sharpe/USA TODAY Sports Images