Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has explained how its team came to exceed the Formula 1 budget cap in 2021.
The FIA announced today the team has been fined $7 million (£6.04m) for the breach and given a 10% reduction in its aerodynamic testing allocation for 2023.
Before the FIA’s decision was announced, Horner repeatedly insisted the team’s cost cap submission was within the limit set by the sport’s governing body. Today the FIA confirmed Red Bull’s submitted costs amounted to £114.293m, inside the cap of £118.036m.
However the FIA judged Red Bull had “inaccurately excluded and/or adjusted costs amounting to a total of £5,607,000.” Once those were added, Red Bull had over-spent by £1.8m.
The FIA originally planned to issue cost cap certificates to teams on October 5th, but postponed its announcement. Horner was informed of their decision four days later, in the aftermath of Max Verstappen’s championship win at Suzuka.
“Ninety minutes after Max Verstappen had won the the drivers world championship in Suzuka, I was informed that we were in fact in breach of the regulations to the tune of 1.8 million,” he told media including RaceFans at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez today.
“Again, we were hugely surprised by that having felt that we’d countered each of the points that have been been discussed.”
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The Financial regulations define with costs should be included within a team’s submission – i.e., spending which does count towards the budget cap – and which are excluded. It transpired Red Bull had both failed to fully account for items which should have been part of their cost cap submission, and vice versa. Some included costs were excluded and one particularly significant excluded cost was included.
This related to a tax payment. The FIA noted that “RBR [Red Bull Racing] applied the correct treatment within its Full Year Reporting Documentation of RBR’s Notional Tax Credit within its 2021 submission of a value of £1,431,348, it would have been considered by the Cost Cap Administration to be in compliance with Article 4.1(b) of the Regulations and therefore RBR’s Relevant Costs for the 2021 Reporting Period would have in fact exceeded the 2021 Cost Cap by £432,652 (0.37%).”
Horner pressed home the point that the team’s overspend could therefore have potentially been far less than it was had all its paperwork…
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