After a long-lasting investigation, Red Bull has received seven million dollars in fines and restrictions on the time spent on testing next year’s car.
The international motor sports association FIA has imposed its penalty on the Red Bull team for exceeding last year’s spending ceiling. Red Bull will be fined seven million dollars and the testing of the team’s car next season will be restricted.
Red Bull will reduce the testing time of aerodynamic parts by ten percent for next year.
According to the FIA, Red Bull had wrongly failed to record expenses for 5.6 million dollars, or a good 5.6 million euros.
Red Bull had exceeded the $145 million spending cap by $1.8 million, or 1.6 percent. According to Red Bull, exceeding the spending ceiling was a matter of different interpretations, for example in the entries of sick allowances or meal costs.
Team manager by Christian Horner according to Red Bull, however, accepted his mistake thinking of the best of the whole sport. According to Horner, the appeals process could have taken a year.
If Red Bull had also started the appeals process, it could also have lost driver or team points from last season. Once Red Bull accepted the penalty, no more points could be lost.
Max Verstappen won the drivers’ championship last year after dramatic stages in the season finale. Red Bull was second in the team battle after Mercedes. However, Horner considered the punishments handed down to be harsh.
– 7 million dollars is a huge amount of money. An even tougher decision is a ten percent cut to our wind tunnel time, Horner said According to the Crash site (you will switch to another service) and reminded how the decision will make it difficult to succeed in future seasons.
As the champion team, Red Bull already had five percent less time to test their aerodynamic parts than the second-placed team. So now Red Bull gets 15 percent less time in the wind tunnel than the second-placed team.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was a little disappointed with the penalty given by Red Bull, but still considered it a suitable deterrent for the F1 teams. Wolff believes that in the future, no one wants to exceed the spending ceiling because of the reputational damage that comes from it.
– I believe that any reduction in wind tunnel time is harmful. It’s hard to say how damaging, though, Wolff stated to Autosport. (you switch to another service)
– I think $7 million is a lot of money. Maybe it’s not in the bigger picture, however, when you think about Red Bull’s investment in its power source and its team.
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