“Too much talk” and “wild speculation” on F1 cost cap

After a series of delays teams will discover on Monday whether or not they have been granted a certificate of compliance that confirms that they performed within the cap in 2021.

If they don’t then further investigation and penalties will follow.

Over the Singapore Grand Prix weekend rival teams suggested that Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin had breached the cap, although both have vehemently denied that it is the case.

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com at Suzuka ahead of Sunday’s Japanese GP, Reid made it clear that the FIA is frustrated that teams have levelled accusations at rivals.

“I think the unfortunate thing for me is there’s been so much speculation, and wild speculation,” he said. “And that’s caused situations where potentially there’s even some reputational damage now, which is unfortunate. There’s been too much talk.

“Monday will come and go, and I’m sure we’ll quickly move on to the next year’s analysis. And we’ll see what comes.

“Personally, I actually don’t know the figures. It is a process, we do have a department who are doing that, they will come with various steps in the process. 

“If there were to be any breaches, I think everybody knows what those breaches would be classified as in terms of procedural, minor and material.

“The regulations are there for everyone to read. We’ve already had the Williams situation [when the team was fined in June] so everybody understands what would happen or what the next steps might be, certainly in terms of procedural breach.

“I don’t know if there will be some procedural breaches, or there might even be some overspends. So let’s wait and see and deal with it at that time.”

Reid stressed that the most important outcome of Monday is that the regulations are seen to have worked successfully.

“They need to work,” he said. “There’s a process. It’s early doors in terms of the regulations. You look at how many changes there are to F1 technical and sporting regulations on an ongoing basis. I think anything new needs to be tweaked.

“Potentially there are some unintended or unrealised consequences in the way things are written. It’s the old classic. If you put push the balloon down here, it’s going to pop up somewhere else that you’re maybe not aware of. We had a trial run in 2020, so this is our first proper one.

“We still have situations from a sporting perspective that people say, ‘Oh, we’ve never seen that before.’ Now, how long has the sport been…