(Mexico City) Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes have criticized the sanctions deemed too weak by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) against Red Bull, the only Formula 1 team to have exceeded the budget ceiling in 2021.
Posted at 2:26 p.m.
For exceeding the cap by 1.6%, which came into effect in 2021 and was then set at $145 million, Red Bull got away with a seven million dollar fine and a 10% reduction in development time. of his single-seater in the wind tunnel for a year… Too little for his opponents.
After referring to “cheating” a few days ago, the CEO of McLaren, the American Zak Brown, reacted after the announcement of the sanction on Friday: “if we want the FIA to be as efficient as possible and that its sanctions serve as a lesson when the rules are broken, the sanctions must be much stronger in the future. »
While Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called the fine “enormous” and the sporting penalty “draconian”, saying it represents a loss of “0.25 to 0.5 seconds of time on the lap”, it’s a completely different story that rings everywhere else in the paddock meeting in Mexico City, for the Mexican Grand Prix which will take place on Sunday.
Ferrari “not satisfied”
Andreas Seidl, McLaren team principal, preferred not to listen to Horner’s justifications, “probably a new fable”.
“On the positive side, it’s good to see that the FIA has done a good job of auditing,” he told Sky Sports. “Nine teams did it right and it was clear that one team was in violation, so (having a sanction is) positive.”
“But on the negative side, it’s also clear that the penalty doesn’t match the offense,” said the German leader, who “just hopes that in the future there will be tougher penalties.”
At Ferrari either, we are “not satisfied” with the penalty, explained Saturday Laurent Mekies, sporting director of the Scuderia.
“The penalty is what it is, but we think it’s low,” continued the Frenchman, saying it “doesn’t make up for the overspending” by Red Bull.
Red Bull will have to count for twelve months on a reduced wind tunnel time, crucial for the development of single-seaters. This time being inversely proportional to the ranking of the teams, Red Bull, world champion 2022, should already have the shortest time.
Thus Red Bull will only be entitled to 63% of the reference time, whereas, if the classification remains that of today, Ferrari, 2e of the championship, can count on 75% and Mercedes, 3e80%.
Is this a sufficient penalty? “Some will say yes, others no,” evaded F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali to AFP, according to whom “the decision is the responsibility of the FIA”.
For the Italian, the introduction of the “cost cap” (budget ceiling) was “a very important step for the credibility” of F1 and “we must now look at what can be done to improve the system”.
Damaged image
To improve the sanctions, Laurent Mekies in any case points to another aspect: “there will be no reduction in the budget ceiling (for Red Bull)”.
The Ferrari boss believes that with the money saved by Red Bull due to the reduced time in the wind tunnel, the team “will be free to spend the money elsewhere, like on suspensions etc. “.
From a technical point of view, the director of engineering of Mercedes, Andrew Shovlin, refuted Saturday the loss estimated by Horner: “I would have rather said a tenth, or even two tenths at the most, to be realistic”.
On Friday, his boss Toto Wolff also commented on the sanction: “As with any penalty, in our opinion it’s too weak, and according to them it’s too strong”.
PHOTO HENRY ROMERO, REUTERS
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff
“I think that in the end the sanctions are dissuasive – the sporting sanction, and to a lesser extent, the fine. But the current damage to their reputation is probably the most important”, raised the Austrian.
For the French Frédéric Vasseur, director of Alfa Romeo, the most detrimental for Red Bull is also the loss of credibility in terms of image.
By accepting the resolution agreement proposed by the FIA, Red Bull “admitted to have exceeded the budget, which is not good in terms of image, for the sponsors”.