Red Bull’s penalty for breaching Formula 1 budget cap rules is “significantly limiting” their car development this winter, Christian Horner has explained.
The budget cap was first introduced for the 2021 season, but midway through the following campaign it was revealed that Red Bull have committed a “minor” overspend. FIA documents later showed they had exceeded the limit by 1.6%, which came down to 0.37% when a tax credit was applied.
For their breach, Red Bull were fined £6m by the governing body and had 10% of their wind tunnel time over a 12-month period taken away. The team is currently in the middle of serving that penalty while also working on their car for the 2023 season.
In a new interview, team principal Horner explained his team is feeling the effects of the punishment. He told RACER : “We’re probably 25% almost of the way through that penalty and, of course, it has an effect. It’s limiting significantly, the amount of runs that we can do in our wind tunnel over each quarter.
“And I think that the team, they’re having to adapt to that. And it just means you have to be a bit more focused, and more disciplined in what we put through the testing process within the tunnel or within our simulation tools.
“So it’s another challenge and it’s a handicap for sure, coming into this year, but we’ve got very capable people that are looking to obviously extract the best that we possibly can and apply ourselves in the most efficient and effective way.”
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Horner begrudgingly accepted the penalty when it was announced last October, prior to the Mexican Grand Prix weekend. Reacting to the “draconian” punishment at a press conference, he said it would have an “enormous” impact upon his team.
Despite falling foul of the regulations in the first year, Horner still thinks the budget cap is a good thing for F1. He added: “I think the principle of it is great and it’s driven efficiency.
“If I look at the business now, compared to where it was four or five years ago, we’d have ended up with a lot of stock of spare parts that were brand new that had never been used, and then they’re just scrap. And so now you just can’t afford to have that. You’ve got to be so effective and efficient.”
