Red Bull F1 penalized for exceeding maximum budget

Earlier this month, the FIA ​​confirmed the suspicions of several Formula 1 teams: Red Bull’s F1 team did not stay under the strict budget cap last year. Now it is known how much Red Bull went wrong and what the penalty is. In 2021, Red Bull has spent more than 1.86 million pounds (€2.17 million) more than allowed. In an earlier cost statement that the FIA ​​received from Red Bull, an amount of more than 5.6 million pounds (€5.8 million) was incorrectly included, which meant that Red Bull was more likely to be convinced that it had remained under the budget cap.

The FIA ​​believes that Red Bull has cooperated well in the entire investigation process and does not suspect Red Bull of willful misconduct. According to the motorsport federation, it should also be taken into account that this concerns the first year of these regulations ‘which are particularly complex’. In addition, an excess of less than £2 million falls in the FIA’s book under the heading ‘mild violation’. It also turned out that the amount was so high due to an incorrectly implemented tax deduction item, otherwise there would have been ‘only’ an excess of more than 4.3 tons. All in all, the FIA ​​believes a fine of $7 million (roughly the same in euros) and a 10 percent reduction in the car’s allotted development time next year is an appropriate penalty. Red Bull has accepted this penalty.

Effects

The ruling of the FIA ​​therefore has no consequences for the championship result of 2021. Red Bull will not immediately lose sleep over the fine. The reduction in development time is a more severe consequence. As a brand new constructors champion, Red Bull will already have the least time allowed (280 hours) next year to work on the development of the car in the wind tunnel and using CFD software. This is laid down in the regulations, with the aim (just like the budget cap) to bring the teams closer together in terms of performance. Red Bull was originally supposed to have 70 percent of the maximum development time next year, 10 percent of that already allocated to Red Bull is now being taken off, so the team will only be allowed to use 63 percent of the maximum development time in 2023. Then you arrive at 252 hours. For context: Williams, which is stiffly behind in the championship, gets 115 percent of the time, which equals 460 hours.

Reportedly, a kind of rule of thumb is that every 50 hours you should be able to save a tenth time per round. Very succinctly put, Red Bull would miss out on a little more than half a tenth because of this penalty. The practice is of course much more complex, but it is a given that Red Bull will be a bit tighter in the development space next year than the competition. However, next year’s car is already largely being developed this year, so there is a chance that – if it makes a noticeable difference – it won’t have an effect on performance until next year and the year after. A somewhat mitigating circumstance is that with the RB18 the team has immediately put down a great car and can largely build on that.