Next week, the FIA intends to announce the result of the first cost cap review for the 2021 season. Two teams are said to be over the limit, one of them significantly. The rumor circulating in the paddock is that it is Red Bull.
That could be a nasty fight in the air. And it’s a real test for the FIA. The budget audits for the 2021 season have been completed. The paddock insiders report that in the first year of the cost cap, two teams exceeded the limit of $147.4 million. One of them on a large scale. There are rumors that it should be Red Bull and Aston Martin.
The FIA is in a bind. It is obliged to make any transgressions public. Exceeding the budget cap is a breach of the rules, like an underweight car or too much gas flow. Supposedly, the result should have been communicated long ago, but one of the two cases could cause an earthquake in the paddock.
FIA without a defined catalog of penalties
Here comes the problem. There is no clearly defined catalog of penalties. The FIA did not want cross-border commuters to offset the damage against the benefit and deliberately exceed the limit as long as the penalty is bearable. According to the regulations, violations of up to five million dollars are considered a “minor rule violation”. The perpetrator may get away with a fine.
The eight teams that are rumored to be within the rules consider that questionable. Mercedes and Ferrari say that an extra five million dollars in development can be worth up to half a second on the race track. Anyone who is over the five million must expect harsher penalties. Possibly a point deduction and a subsequent downgrading in the world championship. Or you can deduct the amount that was exceeded from the cost cap for the affected team the following year.
Use determines crediting of costs
Mercedes and Ferrari consider that questionable. According to their calculations, Red Bull not only exceeded the limit in 2021, but also this season. That’s why the lightweight chassis will probably no longer be used in 2022. The costs for material and production are only included in the budget when it is used for the first time. Only the design costs are immediately included in the budget.
If it turns out that Red Bull actually spent too much money in 2021, then Mercedes will be the most vocal against this. The constructors’ world champions will argue that the title was stolen from them in the finale in Abu Dhabi due to the premature deployment of the safety car, but also because the direct opponent has obtained an unfair technical advantage due to exceeding the budget cap limit.
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Ferrari is angry at the hypothesis that Red Bull should have bent the rules too much for another reason. Under this assumption, the additional money not only flowed into the 2021 car, but also into the development of the 2022 model. Which would explain why Red Bull had such a strong start to the season despite allegedly being the last team to switch focus to this year’s project. So anyone who breaks the budget would have a double win. In the current fiscal year and thereafter.
Red Bull’s competition also claims to have calculated that the upgrades to the current Red Bull RB18 could not possibly be produced within the allowed budget. They themselves are very close to the limit. According to their own calculations, Red Bull must be well above it.
Ferrari decided not to use a new floor in Singapore. “No more money,” regrets team boss Mattia Binotto. Mercedes is holding back for the same reason. The last reserves were put into a smaller modification that will debut in Austin.
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