Red Bull Racing benefits from exceeding the spending limit and what penalty awaits

Each team’s season-long spending limit was first introduced in Formula 1 last year at $145 million – and for 2022 it’s been reduced to $140 million and 23 will be further reduced to $135 million in a more field-healthy competition between the two very rich and the less rich sports teams.

Of course, a budget in the region of $145 million a year is nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream for the teams, so the measure is primarily intended to rein in the big teams who, if nobody gives them a billion of their time, instead of helping the little ones from F1.

Under pre-determined financial rules, exceeding the limit by up to 5%, as was the case with RBR according to the FIA ​​announcement, carries lower penalties than exceeding that percentage. And the regulations provide for the following for this first case, depending on the violation:

Public accusation: It is the mildest punishment and quite mild or even defiantly unacceptable, except in the case of proven errors in the transmission of data and documents in an already very complicated procedure. Excluded from the expense limit are, for example, drivers’ wages, the three highest paid managers, some of the marketing activities, some taxes, electricity and gas bills, employee bonuses and allowances, legal activities, etc. There is a 56-page document that explains all of this . So yeah, it could just be a bug. Or on the other hand for some hidden millions in all these loopholes.

Remove driver and manufacturer ratings: Points are deducted for the season in which the infraction was committed, although exceeding the spending limit will of course also have a positive effect on the following season. As far as we know, this penalty will not be imposed on Red Bull in this specific case. If imposed, it would likely change the outcome of a championship Max Verstappen won by 8 points over Lewis Hamilton. Unless imposed only on the manufacturer.

Suspension for game times but not for games: This means Red Bull may lose the right to compete in free or qualifying tests or even sprint races at some of the upcoming races, but not the actual race on Sunday. In this case, the start will be from the last places, with no information about the tyres.

Limited use of the wind tunnel and fewer tests: As is well known, the time in the wind tunnel has been limited in recent years, precisely because of the extremely expensive operation for all teams in reverse order of the final ranking of the previous year. This means that the champion has the least time in the wind tunnel this year and the bottom of the table has the most. Another wind tunnel restriction on RBR could have significant repercussions, as could a possible ban on participating in the new season’s winter development tests.

Spending Limit Restriction. Another penalty could be a further reduction in Red Bull Racing’s spending cap in subsequent racing seasons.

How RBR benefited from higher spending in 2021

The fact that Milton Keynes’ team scored a “limited scope” offense of up to 5% means they spent up to $7.25 million more than Mercedes and Ferrari in 2021.

But recently the directors of these two teams, Toto Wolff and Mattia Binotto, put the total development costs of their car throughout the season at $3.5 million and $4 million, respectively. And Mercedes F1 said it had to lay off 40 workers.

According to former technical director of several F1 teams, Gary Anderson, it costs around US$500,000 to design, develop and produce a new front wing with all the infrastructure and man-hours required. And 100,000 later every copy of it. So four new front wings for the two cars for one race cost around one million.

The same applies to the floor, which has become particularly important in the last two years – it was the focus of last year’s changes to the regulations and the reintroduction of the floor effect this year.

Then, with every additional million comes a significant improvement in the car’s performance, another small but significant gain in lap time. Significantly, Lewis Hamilton recently said that if he had spent $300,000 more developing last year’s Mercedes W12 he would likely have been champion.

Any advanced component, Anderson continues, should yield a gain of 2-3 tenths of a second per lap, otherwise it’s not worth the effort and time.

Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool