It is especially significant as Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the world championship over Lewis Hamilton that year.
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The Formula One world was shocked when the FIA finally the report of its audits into he spending of the 10 Formula 1 teams for last year’s season. Eight of the 10 teams kept within the rules of the cap but two were found guilty of going out of bounds. These teams were Aston Martin and Red Bull. For the former, the offence was procedural. This means that although they got some of the budget cap processes wrong, the team stayed within the USD 145 million cap the FIA had set. Accounting and reporting protocols were reportedly the main issues for Aston Martin.
It was much more serious when it came to Red Bull. Apart from the usual procedural discrepancies that even Aston Martin was found guilty of, Red Bull were in what the FIA called a ‘minor breach’ of the cost cap. This means that their spending for the 2021 season had exceeded the cap of USD 145 million by less than 5% (USD 7.25 million). No matter how anybody looks at it, that is a big figure. Although the exact amount by which Red Bull exceeded the cap has not been made public by the FIA yet, even a small proportion of that amount can go a long way in impacting a season. It is especially significant as Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the world championship that year.
That is the view Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has of the matter. “Is it a so-called minor breach, because I think the word is probably not correct?” Wolff said. “If you’re spending five million more, and you’re still in the minor breach, it still has a big impact on the championship. To give you an idea, we obviously monitor closely which parts are being brought to the track from the top teams every single race – for the 2021 season and the 2022 season.”
“We can see that there are two top teams that are just about the same and there is another team that spends more. We know exactly that we’re spending – three and a half million a year in parts that we bring to the car. So then you can see what difference it makes to spend another USD 500,000. It would be a difference,” the Mercedes team principal added.
Red Bull released a statement in response to the FIA findings denying any knowledge that they had overspent. “We note the findings by the FIA of ‘minor overspending breaches of the financial regulations’ with surprise and disappointment,” it said in a statement. “Our 2021 submission was below the cost cap limit, so we need to carefully review the FIA’s finding as our belief remains that the relevant costs are under the 2021 cost cap amount. Despite conjecture and positioning of others, there is of course a process under the regulations with the FIA which we will respectfully follow while we consider all the options available to us.”
If Red Bull Racing insists that its accounting was proper and that it came in under the cost cap last year, it can take the subject to a specially formed tribunal, which will then rule. If it disagrees with the tribunal’s decisions, it can appeal to the FIA International Court of Appellate, the highest motorsport appeal authority. It may then refer the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Since Red Bull Racing committed a ‘minor’ rather than a ‘material’ violation, it cannot be kicked out of the championship or banned from races, and no required penalty will be imposed. However, the FIA can still deduct function Object() { [native code] } or driver championship points from the previous season. Given that Max Verstappen defeated Lewis Hamilton to the title by by eight points, a title flip is still possible, albeit unlikely.
The team could potentially face a lower cost cap and development allowance in future seasons to try to recoup the advantage it gained from overspending last year, which will have impacted development for this year’s car. The FIA could also impose a fine or a reprimand but in all honesty, it would be a rather amusing consequence for a team as financially strong as Red Bull.
