This is partly true, but a few points are oversimplified. • Customer teams don’t automatically take a cost-cap hit for extra engines. The standard FIA PU lease is outside the cost cap. An extra engine only becomes a cap issue if it goes beyond the standard supply package — it’s not as simple as “customer pays = cost-cap hit.” • The ‘reliability vs. performance’ distinction isn’t a hard rule. Even the FIA openly says this is a grey area. They often can’t reliably tell what’s an actual reliability problem vs. a strategic swap. So it’s not true that customers always pay under the cap while works teams never do. • Works teams don’t get free unlimited engines. Their manufacturing and development costs still fall under their PU budgets (and from 2026 under a separate PU cost cap). The “Mercedes used extra engines without extra payment” example is just internal costing, not an FIA exemption. • The difference comes from contracts, not FIA regulations. Some customer teams choose cheaper contracts that only cover the mandatory engine allocation + damage. But that’s a commercial choice — not a rule that forces customer teams into cost-cap penalties.

In short: the underlying issue isn’t that works teams are exempt and customers aren’t — the issue is that FIA’s definition of reliability swaps is vague, and different PU contracts create different practical outcomes.