The Formula One cost cap and team Red Bull are kind of enemies. Since when the regulations were implemented, it has affected the reigning champion team in every possible way. The 2021 Formula One season went well for the team. Its star driver Max Verstappen clinched his maiden win, and he also defeated Sir Lewis Hamilton, which is an achievement in itself. But when the team was enjoying the victories of 2022, they faced a tight slap of the cost cap breach allegation.
During the Singapore Grand Prix, one of the moles spread the news that FIA is investigating the annual financial report because team Red Bull breached the budget by $7 million, which is a huge amount. However, in the final reports, the governing body discovered that the team had only breached the budget by $0.5 million. The rest of the amount was consumed by the tax credits, which Red Bull failed to submit.
For breaching the budget even by a minor amount, Red Bull faced enormous reputational damage, hatred, clashes, and criticism from the rival teams. FIA penalized the team with a $7 million fine and reduced 10% of allowance in the Wind Tunnel testing. Red Bull’s principal, Christian Horner, found this penalty to be draconian. Because, according to him, the team did not breach the budget even by a single dollar.
Even With A Lower Budget And Team, Red Bull Won The Championship
Even after signing the penalty agreement letter, Horner did not accept the guilt probably, because he did a lot of struggle to be under the budget. If one counts the struggle in numbers, it can be said that Red Bull lost 154 employees because it could not pay them. The workforce of the team was reduced from 875 to 721 in order to follow the regulations. In 2021, the team had around 100 fewer staff than in 2020. Despite the employee shortage, Red Bull won in 2021. And, again in 2022 with even a lower budget, the team won both championships.
However, the cost budget was not cruel only to Max Verstappen’s team. The rest of the teams, like Mercedes and Ferrari, also faced serious consequences. These are the teams who never cared about one thing, money! The teams may have lacked in strategy but never in expenses. When the cost cap budget was initiated, Mercedes had to make 59 redundancies between 2020 and 2021. The Silver Arrows had around 300 employees more than Red Bull. By the way, Mercedes used to pay high to their employees. So losing 59 members of Mercedes was equal to the 100 members of Red Bull in terms of paying salary.
