It's a stupid idea, and no Peter3hg, it does not make sense. It comes down to a) Being slow and spending a lot b) Being fast and cheap, but not too fast or they'll screw you over. The regs are inherently different for budget, and non-budget cars, which destroys F1. Anyone here can see that.
Everyone here sees what they want to see but nobody wants to face up to the truth. F1 cannot survive as it is in the current climate.
Since when did the original proposals allow for them to randomly slow down fast cars? People keep talking about this but I don't remember seeing it. Maybe I missed it.
Of course the rules are different for budget and non-budget cars, but that doesn't mean there are two sets of rules. That would only be the case if the FIA states which teams had to comply with the budget. If you make the (reasonable) assumption that a new team will be a few seconds off the pace in their first season anyway, the racing would be quite close.
After one season, the teams should have been able to restructure, or have redirected their efforts, sufficiently to all get under the budget limit.
The way I see it, it could be up to 10 years before we see companies such as Honda, Toyota willing to spend ?100m's on F1 again. To have a decently competitive field you either need a lot of big spending manufacturers or a lot of small spending (essentially privateer in scale) teams. The problem at the moment is we only have two teams who are realistically going to be able afford to spend huge amounts for years to come. This frightens off teams such as Honda and Renault as they are still spending a lot but aren't competitive, and it also stops small teams entering as they want to have the chance to be competitive.
For F1 to survive the next decade as any form of competition, the budget cap needs to be imposed quickly. If the teams can't restructure before next year, then the proposed system is the only sensible way to go (especially if the FOTA teams agree to voluntarily break the cap for a year).
Budget-capped F1 with greater technical freedom could bring back the glory days of F1.
Hopefully the teams will get together, realise a budget-cap is necessary, and all agree to abide by it from next year onwards. If they want the cap to be over ?50m however, the exercise will be largely pointless.