Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn has called on Formula One's new owners to address the financial inequalities between teams as soon as possible.
Liberty Media has promised to look into the distribution of the sport's central revenues, which is currently skewed in favour of F1's biggest teams, but it is unlikely to change before the current commercial deals expire in 2020.
The existing structure sees Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Williams receive bonus payments on top of the prize money for their finishing position in the previous year's championship. In 2016, for example, Ferrari earned nearly twice as much in bonus payments before prize money as Sauber received in total.
Speaking to ESPN this week, F1's new managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn said he would look at ways of reducing costs but was not holding much hope of being able to change the existing commercial contracts before 2020. Kaltenborn, however, says the issue cannot wait.
"I certainly hope that it's not going to drag on until 2020 because I'm sure that when people make such an investment, they do have a business plan in place that should start working when they take over and not start working in 2020," Kaltenborn told Racer.com. "The kind of system we have and what you hear from the new owners, we don't see how the system is going to work until 2020, if certain financial privileges are given irrespective of what the result is.
"If you want to make the competition come closer you can also not work like this. So I think everything has to be looked at, and we have a completely new basis."
Asked if she believed renegotiations of the contract talks would happen this year, she added: "As soon as possible. I hope so."
The case for changing the distribution of revenues is likely to come under further scrutiny in coming weeks after the Manor F1 team was forced to close on Friday. Sauber and Force India made an official complaint to the EU Commission about F1's prize money in September 2015, and following the Manor news this week, the MEP for south-east England, Anneliese Dodds, said a full investigation is needed.
"The collapse of Manor Racing could be the end of seven turbulent years for a team that brought highly-skilled jobs to Oxfordshire," Dodds said. "I am very concerned that this follows other job losses in small teams.
"Formula One Group, its owners and the FIA as a regulator really need to be investigated after this collapse. The unfair way in which prize money is allocated in the sport, permanently favouring the largest teams regardless of their finishing position, has seen many teams struggle to survive and ultimately reduced the number of cars on the grid."