Adrian Newey appears to have backed another F1 boss' suggestion for teams lower in the standings to receive extra relief from the sport's cost cap.

Williams team principal James Vowles has been banging the drum this year for struggling teams to receive biggest cost cap margins to allow them to catch up with the big four teams on the grid, as part of his general railing against cost cap implementation.

The former Mercedes man has been spearheading an attempt to create a points-based system which would see teams further back in the constructors' championship – like his Williams team – be less restricted in what they spend.

Vowles has frequently complained that teams who spent heavily on infrastructure before the cost cap came in are advantaged over those who didn't, with capital expenditure on facility improvements coming bit by bit out of the running and development budgets of teams over the following years.

Newey weighs in on cost cap debate

Newey didn't go as far as to back Vowles on some of his more anti-cost cap stances – recently saying that the system has made the sport less healthy – but did point out that existing methods of helping poor-performing teams through ADUO and extra wind tunnel time are a precedent for a performance-based cap system.

“If you look at things like wind tunnel testing," he said, "then that – and also the engines with the ADUO – then those are both examples where teams that are behind are granted more wind tunnel time or dyno time or whatever it might be than the teams that sit at the front.

“So, it’s easy from that point of view to then extrapolate that to, okay, if teams are behind, then also give them a small extra allowance on the budget.”

Newey's Aston Martin team are one of four, along with Alpine, Audi and Cadillac, to back Williams' proposals to help smaller teams catch up to the current giants.