Red Bull’s Horner Predicts Impact of ‘Draconian’ Punishment on Next Year’s F1 Car

The details of Red Bull’s Accepted Breach Agreement with the FIA were released on Friday, and some—including F1 teams—felt the punishment wasn’t steep enough for breaching the cost cap. 

The Milton Keynes-based team was dealt a $7 million fine and a 10% reduction in aerodynamic testing time for the next 12 months. But team principal Christian Horner argued that the latter portion of the sanctions “will have a material effect on our performance.” 

Red Bull was already receiving less wind tunnel time than the other nine teams on the grid after winning the constructors’ title this season as the lowest team gets the most time and the highest team gets the least. "By winning the constructors' championship, we become victims of our own success, in addition to that 10%, having 5% incremental disadvantage or handicap compared to the second and third place,” Horner said. “...That 10% put into reality will have an impact on our ability to perform on-track next year.”

To put it in perspective, Sky Sports F1 reported Red Bull will only have 25 runs instead of the 28 while the team lowest in the constructor standings will have 46 runs. 

“The more draconian part is the sporting penalty, which is a 10% reduction in our ability to utilize our wind tunnel and aerodynamic tools,” Horner said. “I’ve heard people reporting today that it’s an insignificant amount. Let me tell you now, that is an enormous amount. 

“That represents anywhere between a quarter and half a second of a lap.”

Rumors started to arise in Singapore that Aston Martin (procedural) and Red Bull breached the cost cap, and Horner denied rumors that his team overspent. But as rivals made comments, he demanded a retraction while in Singapore. The rival comments continued to the Japanese Grand Prix, and most recently, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown penned a letter to the FIA on Oct. 12 and took a hard stance on the matter, saying it “constitutes cheating.” The letter, first reported by BBC, did not directly name Red Bull or Aston Martin, though. 

While in Austin, Horner said Red Bull “had zero benefit from a development perspective or an operational perspective either for 2021 or 2022 from the way that we operated within the cap” and described how the team has “been on trial because of public accusations since Singapore.” 

“The rhetoric of cheats, that we’ve had this enormous benefit, and numbers have been put out by the media that are miles out of reality,” Horner said ahead of the U.S. Grand Prix. “The damage that does to the brand, to our partners, to our drivers, to our workforce … in an age when mental health [problems are] prevalent, we’re seeing significant issues within our workforce. We’re seeing kids that are being bullied in playgrounds, employees’ children.”

Now that the punishment is public, Brown did not agree with the severity of the punishment. He said in a statement via Racer, in part, “If the FIA is to be most effective and its punishments serve as a lesson to others when rules are broken in this way, the sanctions have to be much stronger in the future.” Brown added, “While we are pleased to see them act, we would hope the FIA take stronger action in future against those that willfully break the rules.”

Horner felt that this punishment, which they “begrudgingly accept,” was “lobbied hard for by our competitors because they felt it hit us the hardest.” He later added, “I'm sure if you burned our wind tunnel down, it wouldn't be enough.”