The FIA confirmed yesterday that it had reached an Accepted Breach Agreement with Red Bull Racing following the Austrian side’s breach of the budget cap rules for the 2021 Formula 1 season.
As part of the terms of the agreement, Red Bull will have to pay a $7 million fine, but has also received a sporting penalty: a 10% reduction in its aerodynamic testing time for one year.
While Red Bull boss Christian Horner of course felt the sanction was still too harsh, describing it as “enormous” and “draconian” and pointing out to what he felt were mitigating factors, rival teams shared a different view. The first one to react was German motorsport engineer Andreas Seidl, currently the team principal of the McLaren, who said he was uninterested in Red Bull’s ‘fairy tale’ cost cap breach explanation and that the penalty doesn’t fit their breach.
Scuderia Ferrari has been repeatedly vocal during the last few weeks about its expectations regarding a strict penalty for any team that would breach the financial regulation, explaining that it was very important to protect the integrity of the budget cap rules.
In a recent interview for Sky Italia at the end of the second free practice session for the Mexico City Grand Prix, Ferrari’s sporting director Laurent Mekies shared his satisfaction for the transparency FIA for its transparency in making the investigation and the decision, calling it a “very clear conclusion”.
However, Laurent Mekies pointed out the impact the extra money which Red Bull was found to have used above the budget cap limit by £1.8m could have been used for improving the car:
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“We have talked a lot in recent weeks about what one can do with half a million more, or a million or two or three. Two million [euros] is a significant amount and we have given our opinion several times on this topic. We at Ferrari think that this amount is worth around a couple of tenths [per lap] and so it’s easy to understand that these figures can have a real impact on the outcome of the races, and maybe even a championship.”
Laurent Mekies said that Ferrari did not believe the aerodynamic testing reduction would in fact compensate for the possible gain as a result of the extra spending, while also pointing out that with given the lack of impact on Red Bull’s budget cap, the need not to spend money on extra aerodynamic testing would allow for more to be spent in other areas:
“As for the penalty, we are not happy with it, for two important reasons,” said the Ferrari assistant team principal and race director – “The first is that we at Ferrari do not understand how the 10% reduction of the ATR can correspond to the same amount of lap time that we mentioned earlier. Furthermore, there is another problem in that. Since there is no cost cap reduction in the penalty, the basic effect is to push the competitor to spend the money elsewhere. It has total freedom to use the money it can no longer spend on use of the wind tunnel and CFD due to the 10% reduction, on reducing the weight of the car, or who knows what else. Our concern is that the combination of these two factors means the real effect of the penalty is very limited.” – he added.
At the same time, Laurent Mekies believes that it is important for Formula 1 paddock to accept the decision and move on from this matter, without insisting on any other discussions related to Red Bull’s budget cap breach. The Ferrari Sporting Director is confident there would be no repeat of this situation for the following seasons and everything will be settled much quicker.
“We have no choice but to move on and I believe it is very important for us and also for the whole of F1 and the fans, that for 2022, we do not have to wait until next October to see the outcome of the accounts. We will support the FIA to do what is needed to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible.” – Laurent Mekies concluded.
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