Toto Wolff considers Red Bull’s penalty too lenient

Found guilty of violating the budget cap rules, the Red Bull team was fined $7 million and had a 10% reduction in their allocated time for aerodynamic testing.

For Toto Wolff, boss of the Mercedes team, these sanctions are too lenient: “I think that for us, this sanction is too small. For them, it will be too big. I believe that any reduction in wind tunnel time is harmful. But the extent of the harm is difficult to estimate at this stage.”

I think that in absolute terms, 7 million represents a lot of money. But considering things on a larger scale at Red Bull, especially the investment they put into their power unit and the team, it’s not much.

Wolff agrees that today’s result will serve as an appropriate deterrent for other teams and help enforce the budget cap in the future.

I think that the sum of sanctions is deterrent, the sports sanction, and to a lesser extent, the monetary fine. But the damage to reputation is probably the most important thing, and no team wants to get close to that, because today, we live in a compliant and transparent world.

Regarding Christian Horner’s justifications, his counterpart at Red Bull, Wolff does not find them acceptable: « Nine teams are in compliance with the rules and have remained under the cap. This is a sport of marginal gains, and everything else is just talk. There are no mitigating circumstances. »

Wolff takes the opportunity to praise the work of the FIA on the budget cap control: “What I find positive is the strong governance. Nothing can be swept under the carpet. The FIA has supported the process. And I think that, although this administration has only been in place for ten months, it is very encouraging to see that the rules are being enforced.”

« What we need to address are the minor and major shortcomings. I think a violation is a violation. And that’s how it should be handled. » concludes Wolff, whose war axe doesn’t seem to be buried with Christian Horner yet.