Red Bull F1 penalty prediction made after FIA “colonoscopy” of team’s accounts

Red Bull has already broken the F1 budget cap once, and they have no intention of doing so again, especially since Christian Horner believes the consequences of their previous penalty may not yet be fully felt.

Christian Horner maintains that his Red Bull team might not have fully felt the consequences of its fine for violating the Formula 1 budget cap regulations.

A year ago, the 2021 season’s overspending was first made public. The FIA fined £6 million for what it considered to be a “minor” rule violation, but the more significant punishment was that the team lost 10% of their wind tunnel testing time for the next 12 months.

Team principal Horner called that punishment “draconian” at the time and was adamant that it would have a huge impact. But if it has made a difference then it has hardly been noticed in 2023, given Red Bull strolled to both titles virtually unopposed.

That reduction in wind tunnel time is coming to an end now, but Horner says the true impact of the penalty may only become truly apparent next season, given much of their car development resource, especially in recent months, has gone towards the team’s 2024 machine.

“Certainly, you’ve not seen the full impact yet because it obviously has compromised the amount of development that we’ve been able to do this year,” he told reporters.

“Thankfully, we came out with a very strong car at the beginning of the year and we’ve been able to apply most of that development time from quite early in the season to next year’s car, so that’s been important.”

There was increased interest as the FIA examined each team’s 2022 account to see if the rules would be broken again in light of the 2021 season breach. But this time, every single one of the ten teams followed the guidelines.

Horner continued by saying that this came after a procedure that was even more demanding than what his team had gone through the previous year. “I believe the cost cap process is evolving,” he stated. We went through a complete colonoscopy this summer due to the FIA’s extraordinary level of scrutiny this year. These regulations are incredibly complex and have developed over time.

“I think that the FIA are learning as well from their side and the rules have evolved and, of course, every company is structured in a slightly different way as well, which adds to the complexity, whether you’ve got subsidiary accounts or what your reporting group is, for example, and so that has a bearing as well.

“So it’s a very complex set of regulations and I think the FIA have actually done a pretty decent job of what we’ve seen over the last 12 months.”