Red Bull believes it has not yet incurred a penalty for exceeding the budget cap

The development of Red Bull was impeded in 2023. The Austrian team had received a penalty on wind tunnel time in October 2022, following a breach of the budget cap in 2021. This sanction had a significant impact on the engineers, particularly regarding the drag and aerodynamics of the cars. As a result of this decision, Red Bull had access to 63% of the wind tunnel time allocated by the FIA, compared to 70% if the team had not been penalized.

However, it seems that this penalty did not compromise the development of the RB19, which dominated the competition throughout the 2023 season. Up until the Brazilian GP, the Austrian team won every race, except for Singapore (won by Carlos Sainz). Red Bull has a total of 731 points in the constructors’ standings, giving them a 360-point lead over Mercedes, who is second in the championship.

The development of RB20 is prioritized.

In 2023, Red Bull seems alone in the world of racing and has hardly been threatened except in qualifying or on a specific Grand Prix in Singapore. The penalty does not seem to have fully impacted the team yet. Christian Horner, for his part, believes that the repercussions have not yet been fully felt, for now. « Of course, you haven’t seen the full impact yet because it has obviously compromised the level of development we could achieve this year », Horner said. « Fortunately, we released a very solid car early in the year and were able to apply most of this development time quite early in the season to next year’s car. With the wind tunnel restrictions we had, we chose to apply them to the RB20, next year’s car, rather than continuing development on the RB19. »

A highly monitored year 2023

With this offense detected at Red Bull, the FIA has decided to monitor teams more closely. Numerous controls have been carried out. The level of surveillance that the FIA applied this year has been phenomenal, stated the team director from Milton Keynes. It was a complete coloscopy that we experienced this summer. And I think the FIA is also learning. Of course, each company is structured slightly differently, which adds to the complexity, whether you have subsidiary accounts or what your group is. I believe that the FIA has done a fairly decent job based on what we have seen in the past 12 months.

Bruno Famin, who is acting as Alpine’s director, asserts that the Federation actively assists teams with expense declarations. « We work in Formula 1, Formula E, at Le Mans, and trying to allocate the correct expense to the right project is sometimes very difficult, explained the Frenchman. « The FIA helps us in trying to clarify things, just as we also try to assist the FIA in improving its process because it is so complex that it is quite easy to make a mistake somewhere or to have a wrong interpretation of what it wants. »

The day after the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix, Red Bull’s penalty officially ended. In 2023, no budget cap violations were found among the teams.