F1 News: Red Bull penalised with $7 million fine and limited 2023 development for budget cap overspending
Red Bull's budget cap overspending has been one of F1's main talking points in recent weeks, as the FIA insisted on keeping the details of Red Bull's penalty for overspending secret.
Immediately after the FIA's analysis (which concluded that Red Bull overspent in 2021), Red Bull issued a statement strongly rejecting the idea that they breached the budget cap.
The Austrian team even implied that legal action could be taken, with the team emphasising it was willing to entertain all options at its disposal.
However, Red Bull has ultimately conceded that it committed a breach of the budget cap for last season and has accepted a fine of $7 million and a 10% reduction in wind tunnel time for next season.
As the 2022 champions, Red Bull will already have less wind tunnel time than any other team in F1, and the FIA's penalty will further compound this deficit.
The FIA has confirmed that Red Bull's total financial breach of the budget cap was $2.2 million. It is worth noting that there were discrepancies in the application of taxes.
According to the FIA, had taxes been correctly applied, Red Bull's overspending of the 2021 budget cap would have amounted to 0.5$ million.
The Accepted Breach Agreement between the FIA and Red Bull says the following:
"Red Bull Racing was found to be in breach. However, the Cost Cap Administration recognised that:
"Red Bull Racing has acted cooperatively throughout the review process.
"Has sought to provide additional information and evidence when requested in a timely manner.
"[And] That this is the first full year of the full application of the Financial Regulations.
"There is no accusation or evidence that Red Bull Racing has sought at any time to act in bad faith, dishonest or in a fraudulent manner, nor has it wilfully concealed any information from the Cost Cap administration."
This penalty now sets a precedent for how teams will be punished for exceeding the budget cap in the future and will help determine how strictly F1 teams follow the cap moving forward.
The FIA has ensured that Red Bull has been punished with both sporting and financial penalties, but it remains to be seen how impactful these penalties will prove to me.
A $7 million fine is hardly significant for a financial powerhouse like Red Bull, so the question is now to what degree the team is impacted by reduced wind tunnel time for 2023.