It is now official: Red Bull Racing have been found guilty of breaking Formula 1’s budget cap, as confirmed by the sport’s governing body, the FIA, a few moments ago.
The has been reported by several sources for a few days now, but the FIA only published the results of its financial investigation on Monday: Red Bull exceeded the $145m (£114m) limit during 2021, the FIA said, explaining that the offence was “minor”, the lower of the two categories of breach.
This means the team exceeded the cap by less than 5%, or $7.25m. Both Red Bull and Aston Martin were found guilty of a procedural breach of the cap.
The FIA added that it was “currently determining appropriate action”.
Red Bull and Aston Martin can appeal against the decision.
The official statement informs that “with respect to this first year of the application of the financial regulations, the intervention of the FIA cost-cap administration has been limited to reviewing the submissions made by the competitors and that no full formal investigations were launched.”
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A procedural breach is not an overspend, but rather a failure to fill in forms correctly. Williams were also found guilty of this and fined $25,000 a few months ago. For a minor breach, which is less than 5% overspend, penalties can include a public reprimand, a deduction of constructors’ or drivers’ championship points, exclusion from events, limitations on aero testing or a fine.
For now no details were forthcoming about how the FIA would handle Aston Martin and Red Bull’s breaches of the budget cap regulation.
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