Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff says Red Bull’s budget cap overruns are an ‘open secret’ in the paddock and would be a ‘heavy’ matter if the team were found to be in violation. say it will be.
Reports emerged on Friday that Red Bull and Aston Martin were being investigated for breaches of financial regulations, with Red Bull Racing significantly exceeding its budget cap.
Last year F1 introduced a budget cap to reduce the spending gap between the main teams and backmarkers.
Red Bull Racing has denied it has exceeded the limit and team principal Christian Horner said on Friday that he was pleased the account was under quota.
“It’s been weeks and months that they’ve been under investigation, so it’s funny for Christian to say that,” Wolff told Sky F1.
“Maybe he’s not talking to the chief financial officer.”
“We’ve all been vetted, and as far as we understand, there’s a team with more procedural minor violations and another team with fundamentally larger violations. It’s an open secret in the paddock that’s being investigated.”
FIA regulations stipulate that penalties for cost caps range from fines to expulsion from the championship.
Toto Wolff has warned that the 2021 violation will benefit the team in question, but backs the FIA penalizing for good reasons.
“I think we have a very solid governance set by the FIA,” said Wolff.
“A certificate of compliance will be issued and non-compliance will be forwarded to a cost cap adjudication panel with an independent judge who can choose among these penalties as appropriate.”
“But the important part is that if you’re over in 2021, you’re over in 2022, which means you’ll have an advantage in 2023.”
“If it is true that they have approved a lightweight chassis this year, they may use it next year. This is a chain of events that could impact every championship.”
Some teams, like Mercedes, have been forced to slash their annual budgets after the introduction of caps.
Toto Wolff said Mercedes has taken dramatic steps to ensure its costs comply with regulations.
“It’s pretty heavyweight,” said Wolff.
“We are using used parts, we are not doing what we want to do. We are not developing what we can develop.”
“We have laid off more than 40 people who will be greatly missed in our organization. It was a huge project to protect Cap.”
“I don’t know how many tens of millions it cost to rebuild and rework to get below the cap. If someone didn’t do it or push the limits, they would be at a big penalty in the millions. It will happen.”
Category: F1 / mercedes / red bull