Red Bull got caught last season for spending too much money.
The F1 team Red Bull has received its punishment for exceeding the budget ceiling last season.
The international automobile association FIA fined Red Bull seven million dollars. In addition, ten percent of next season’s wind tunnel test time will be taken from the team.
Last season, Red Bull exceeded the $145 million budget cap imposed by the rules by 1.6 percent. The F1 team, which has its headquarters in England, was found to have exceeded the budget by a good 1.8 million pounds.
In the audit of the financial statements carried out by the F1 series, Red Bull was found to have marked income streams in a suspicious way for about five million dollars.
Talli explained that this was due to unexpected expenses, for example in security and catering services, increased costs and honest calculation errors.
Sanction
As punishment, the umbrella organization slapped Red Bull with a monetary sanction of seven million dollars. In addition, ten percent of the wind tunnel time calculated for it will be deducted from the stable next year. F1 limits the teams’ wind tunnel testing, so with the penalty, Red Bull’s test time will decrease even more.
Among the other teams, Aston Martin and Williams were also under investigation, but the FIA did not find evidence of exceeding the budget ceiling in its investigations. However, these stables received warnings for misreporting financial figures.
Dirty year
Red Bull won the drivers’ world championship last season, when Max Verstappen rose to number one after dramatic stages.
When the first news about Red Bull’s rule violation rushed to the pit this fall, old wounds were torn open. The Mercedes camp, in particular, demanded punishment for rule breakers.
In the Mercedes camp, it was certainly felt that the overspending turned the tight World Cup battle against Lewis Hamilton in Verstappen’s favor in the end.
In the wildest speculations, points losses were reported for Verstappen and Red Bull. It would have elevated the British driver, who lost the championship in the last round, to the number one of the 2021 season.
This was not done now. The FIA had previously stated that the loss of points was only possible in the case where the budget ceiling had been exceeded by a large amount. After a thorough investigation, Red Bull was not accused of such a thing.
In the end, Red Bull managed to get by by a little bit considering the conditions. PDO