Two F1 teams are said to have exceeded the 2021 budget cap.
One of them is said to be Red Bull – and that could have dire consequences for Max Verstappen’s team, who won the 2021 FIFA World Cup and lead this year’s championship.
According to Italy’s Gazzetta dello sport and Germany’s Motor und Sport, two teams exceeded last year’s budget limit of $148.6 million.
It is said that one is Red Bull and the other Aston Martin.
It’s a serious violation of the rules, worse than cheating with a car on the track, Williams team principal Just Capito tells Motorsport Total.
– Affects the entire season.
He points out that it affects not only the current season, in this case 2021, but also the two subsequent seasons. Red Bull won the 2021 WC Cup with Max Verstappen and leads this year’s championship by a wide margin.
– Capito says that a purely monetary fine does not play a role here.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff supports him.
“If there’s a little penalty here, we’ve ruined everything for the future,” Wolff tells German Sky.
Could Max Verstappen lose the WC title?
Wolff calls on the FIA to put a clear mark and quickly.
– We use used parts and do not drive the parts we want to drive. We do not develop what we can develop. More than 40 people have had to quit their jobs and our company is really missing them, says the Mercedes manager and continues:
– It’s really a very massive program to produce and develop the car so that it becomes faster. We were allowed to change the entire structure of our organization and make major changes in order to meet the budget cap. Every million participants is a huge disadvantage for us.
Since last year’s toilet was identified with a controversial safety car, the discomfort at Mercedes is too great. According to Wolff, it’s about Red Bull “an open secret in the ring.”
If we and Ferrari had known we could have spent another five million dollars, we obviously would have. Without problems, Wolff tells Sky Italia.
Has Red Bull over budgeted?
Just like Williams’ team principal, he’s demanding that teams who broke the budget cap be punished, and Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur is of the same opinion.
It should never be tolerated. If you weigh 300 grams less than necessary, you will be washed out, and if you use several million more than the others, it is unfair, says Wasser.
According to information in various media outlets, Red Bull must have gone over the budget cap, and Aston Martin has gone over the limit a bit. The FIA has received all the information from the stables ahead of this year’s season and will come out with the result of the first “report” next week. The league said before the season that anyone who violated the budget cap would be punished, but it never revealed the meaning of the penalty.
Red Bull, on the other hand, believes the team has done nothing wrong.
– Red Bull Motorsports consultant says it is incomparable for such things to become public when it is an ongoing process that has yet to be clarified Helmut Marko up to the sky.
– It hurts our reputation. There are items in the budget that don’t even belong to it. They are having a discussion about positions, about who works and where. We have many different companies. We have the advanced Red Bull technology, we have the Red Bull technology, the Red Bull Powertrains. Everything must be separated very clearly.
The FIA has not issued a specific statement on the matter, but according to German RTL, the spokesperson made the following comment:
The FIA is currently finalizing the evaluation of the 2021 financial statements submitted by all teams, if necessary, the violation will be dealt with in accordance with the formal procedure laid down in the regulations.
