McLaren and Ferrari have voiced strong disappointment in the penalty given to Red Bull for breaching the budget cap in 2021.
On Friday, it was confirmed the reigning world champions had entered into an Accepted Breach Agreement with the FIA and would pay a $7m fine plus have a 10% reduction in aerodynamic testing time over the next year.
Then, team boss Christian Horner gave a detailed press conference, explaining the breach and insisting their overspending did not result in any extra performance on the track.
However, asked for his view, McLaren boss Andreas Seidl was pretty harsh in his response.
“No, I didn’t listen to it [the press conference] because I can imagine it was another fairy tale, probably. Not really interested in that,” the German said.
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“In the end, on the positive side, I think it’s good to see the FIA did a good job in terms of doing the audit. Nine teams got it right and it was clear one team was in breach, so that’s a positive outcome.
“But on the negative side, it’s also clear, from my point of view, that the penalty doesn’t fit the breach. I just hope moving forward we have stricter penalties in place.”
High inflation and increased costs during 2022 have led to suggestions that more than half the grid could exceed the budget cap when the analysis is completed next year.
However, the McLaren chief pushed back, arguing: “There’s absolutely no reason to be in breach this year. We had good discussions earlier this year with all teams, the FIA and F1 regarding these topics.
“That’s why the cap was adjusted and it was also made clear from all teams and the FIA’s side that there is absolutely no reason, after these positive decisions in the interests of the sport, that there is any breach at the end of the year.
“I just hope if there is any breach, it ends up being appropriate penalties.”
Offering Ferrari’s reaction, sporting director Laurent Mekies also believes Red Bull’s punishment doesn’t go far enough.
“Two million Euros is a significant amount and we have given our opinion several times on this topic,” he told Sky Italia.
“We at Ferrari think that this amount is worth around a couple of tenths [per lap] and so it’s easy to understand that these figures can have a real impact on the outcome of the races, and maybe even a championship.
“As for the penalty, we are not happy with it, for two important reasons.
“The first is that we at Ferrari do not understand how the 10 per cent reduction of the ATR can correspond to the same amount of lap time that we mentioned earlier.
“Furthermore, there is another problem in that, since there is no cost cap reduction in the penalty, the basic effect is to push the competitor to spend the money elsewhere.
“It has total freedom to use the money it can no longer spend on the use of the wind tunnel and CFD due to the 10 per cent reduction, on reducing the weight of the car, or who knows what else.
“Our concern is that the combination of these two factors means the real effect of the penalty is very limited.”
