Red Bull fined and everything else in Formula 1

Formula 1 has an incredibly wide set of rules and a big part of being successful at the top of motorsport is exploiting those rules and finding loopholes. The rule that is getting the most attention for the 2022 season is that each team’s budget is $140 million. Red Bull just couldn’t cut back on fine dining and now, thanks to the FIA, they’ve been fined $7 million…sort of.

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Christian Horner reflects on Red Bull’s budget breach

This excellent business by Red Bull is really embarrassing

At first, Red Bull strongly denied breaching the $140 million budget set by the FIA ​​for all Formula 1 teams. However, we now know that it primarily came down to a basic misunderstanding of all things. Catering was shown to be a major source of overspent money, which Red Bull did not see as a problem as it did not directly affect the F1 team and was provided to the whole company, not just the F1 team.

Motorsport.com This was announced by Red Bull team boss Christian Horner at a press conference in Grand Prix of Mexico “Catering at Red Bull has always been a benefit provided by the group, the benefit of working for the Red Bull group has always been free food and drink… The FIA ​​took a different view [free catering] and said that food is not excluded. Fair enough. But what was included was the entire catering bill for our entire company, so £1.4m worth of food, drink, coffee.’

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Horner said there were other factors that contributed to Red Bull breaching the budget cap, such as paying sick leave or simply not including payments to others that Red Bull believed were not included in F1’s budget. The total amount Red Bull overspent was around £1.8 million, or just over $2.1 million. However, the massive inclusion of taxes reduced that to only about $500,000. Regardless of how much he exceeded, the FIA ​​fined Red Bull $7 million and reduced his stay allowed to carry out a 10% aerodynamics check over the next 12 months. However, Red Bull’s budget cap for next season will not be changed. The FIA ​​issued a statement which essentially said that because Red Bull had sufficiently cooperated with the investigation, there was no longer reason to suspect the team.

Red Bull F1 car blows up at GP Mexico.

Fortunately, F1 is not just about controversies over technical details

The Mexican Grand Prix concluded on Sunday and presented the unique challenge of being around 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) above sea level, so both downforce and, above all, cooling were the main issues the teams were dealing with on last week. McLaren installed more slots in the engine cover and cooling ductsAlphaTauri made changes to the front end to stop brake boiling, while Red Bull changed part of the center of the car to allow for better airflow.

Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo and Mercedes has developed new floors to help with downforce. The reason for this is that since the air is thinner due to the altitude, the downforce will not be as effective, but there will also be no resistance, so teams can run with high downforce and the cars will still drive like any other shake Also, to absolutely no one’s surprise, Audi has officially confirmed that it will do exactly what everyone thought. It is the purchase of a controlling stake in Sauber, which is currently sponsored by Alfa Romeo and will enter the pinnacle of motorsport in 2026 with plans to build an engine under that year’s regulations.