While “too little” in his view, Red Bull’s penalty for breaching the budget cap is a “deterrent”, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claims.
On Friday, it was confirmed the newly crowned Formula 1 Constructors’ champions have made an Accepted Breach Agreement with the FIA after being found to have exceeded the 2021 $145m limit by $2.2m, mostly due to tax.
As a result, Red Bull will be fined $7m and face a 10% reduction in aerodynamic testing time over the next 12 months.
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In a press conference, team boss Christian Horner admitted he expected their rivals to be unhappy with that level of punishment, suggesting that not even burning down their wind tunnel “would be enough”
And Wolff acknowledged, the outcome was always likely to be divisive.
“I think as for any penalty, for us, it’s too little and for them, it will be too much,” he said via Motorsport.com.
“Any reduction in wind tunnel time is going to be detrimental. How detrimental is difficult to judge at this stage.
“And in absolute terms, $7m is a lot of money. But maybe in the bigger scheme of things for Red Bull, considering the investment they do on the power unit side and on the team, it’s not.”
However, the Mercedes chief does believe the FIA has done its job in trying to put off any teams from purposefully exceeding the budget cap.
“I think that the sum of the penalties is a deterrent, the sporting penalty, and to a lesser degree, the financial fine,” Wolff stated.
“But reputational damage that is happening is probably the biggest thing, and no team will want to come anywhere near that, because obviously, we are living in a transparent and compliant world.
“Our shareholders or our partners demand compliance, and in that respect that’s just not on anymore.”
And after being unhappy with how the FIA has handled matters over the past year, the Austrian also praised the governing body for their transparency.
“What I take as a positive is the strong governance,” he added.
“Nothing was brushed under the carpet. The FIA stood by the process and I think that although the administration has only been in place for 10 months, it’s very encouraging to see things executed.
“That’s the real positive of the process. Mohammed [Ben Sulayem, FIA president], with a strong group of individuals, Federico [Lodi, head of financial regulations], Shaila Ann [Rao, interim secretary general for sport] and Nikolas [Tombazis, single-seater technical head], ensured that the assessment and the policing of the cost cap was robust. And that is what I take as a positive out of the whole process.
“What we need to tidy up is the minor and major breaches. I think a breach is a breach. And that’s how it should be handled.”