Red Bull has been judged guilty of breaking the Formula 1 cost cap in 2021 during Max Verstappen’s charge to his first world championship.
Today’s delayed announcement, originally expected before the Japanese Grand Prix, confirms the Milton Keynes-based team was in breach of budget limitations that are central to the foundations by which modern F1 is regulated.
The FIA, motorsport’s governing body, hasn't revealed by how much Red Bull exceeded the cost cap, set last year at $145 million (£114m), but described the offence as “minor”. That indicates the breach is in the lower of two categories set out in the regulations, to the tune of less than 5% or $7.25m (£2.49m).
The team, which finished second in the constructors’ standings to Mercedes-AMG last year, has also been found to have committed what is known as a "procedural" breach for the late submission of files, an offence that Aston Martin has also been found guilty of.
No penalty has yet been announced for either team. The FIA said it was “currently determining appropriate action".
A range of penalties for Red Bull are possible: a reprimand, a deduction of drivers’ and/or constructors’ championship points, suspension from competition, increased limitations on aerodynamic testing and a reduction of the team’s future cost cap.
Earlier this year, Williams was found guilty of a procedural breach and was fined £25,000 (£22,600).
The confirmation of the FIA’s findings follows in the wake of stringent denials by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner at both the Singapore and Japanese GPs that the team had committed a breach of the budget cap.
Red Bull has responded to the FIA’s statement, saying: “We note the findings by the FIA of ‘minor overspend breaches of the financial regulations’ with surprise and disappointment.
“Our 2021 submission was below the cost cap limit, so we need to carefully review the FIA’s findings as our belief remains that the relevant costs are under the 2021 cost cap amount.
“Despite the 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.”
The findings will fire F1 into a controversy and potential crisis that Red Bull’s critics, including rivals Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari, will claim seriously undermines not only Verstappen’s first world title, gained last year, but also his second, which was confirmed in confusing circumstances at Suzuka on Sunday.
The level of punishment will become a point of conjecture that will raise uncomfortable questions about the team’s success over the past two seasons.
Join the debate
Add your comment
"$7.25m (£2.49m)."
Oof! Maths is taking a bit of a beating today, no?
Don’t know if this is all part of the Netflixing of F1 but the FIA have now reported that minor overspends on legal fees and catering were the sum total of Red Bull overspends… hardly the stuff we should be all be getting worked up over.
Now the FIA - between Abu Dhabi last year and again in 2022 the race results called 5 hours after a race, the Japanese GP with its tractor on track and race distance points ambiguity, that’s what really needs to be fixed.
Emmm 'overspend on catering' sounds like accounting talk for shifting figurers around. It's a budget cap on the whole F1 team not indivdual departments, an overspend is an overspend. That's now two *'s against Max WDCs.
Catering massively over orders frzone sausage rolls? Greggs reports record breaking profits? It could happen.
The apparent uncertainty of how this will be dealt with highlights how the cost cap was not thought through enough, and it was obvious teams would try to exploit that.
I agree that the result needs to be transparent, as does the extent to which the cost cap was exceeded, and all other matters related to these breaches. F1 and Ferrari are still tainted by the secret resolution when they apparently cheated, but how they did wasn't revealed. The Red Bull and Verstappen wins will be forever tainted (beyond that which they already are for the manner of finishing last season) if this is not resolved completely in the open and with appropriate penalties.