Ex-Formula 1 driver Martin Brundle says that any punishment relating to a cost cap breach must “hurt” the guilty party.
On Monday, the FIA announced that two teams overspent last year’s budget cap of $145 million.
Aston Martin was found to have been in a “procedural” breach, while Red Bull had a “minor” overspend in 2021.
The Milton Keynes-based squad hit back at the claims, insisting that the accounts it submitted to the FIA earlier this year were below the quota.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Brundle asserts that any team that has gone over the threshold must be dealt a punishment that “hurts” the organisation.
“What seems absolutely crazy to me is that a minor breach can be up to five per cent overspend on the cost cap,” Brundle said.
“That is $7m and we know that is a massive upgrade on a car, maybe even a B-spec for some teams.
“So, that needs tightening up for starters, because what is the point in having $145m and then having this five per cent variant?
“Other teams are saying, ‘this gives you a head start into 2022, the car is carried over to 2023 so this is a big advantage’.”
“It has got to be made clear that you stick to the cost cap or just under it or otherwise it is going to hurt.
“We’ll see if the FIA want to come down hard on the first year. But certainly it needs tightening up. We need clarity and it needs to be rigid and a five per cent variance is way too much.”
The FIA can take measures such as deducting championship points or even excluding teams from the championship if they are found to have broken the financial regulations.
However, it is not expected that Red Bull will be issued such a severe penalty, given its breach falls into the “minor” category.
Brundle admits he was disappointed that the FIA is waiting even longer to announce the punishment that awaits Red Bull.
“It’s very disappointing that that information hasn’t been supplied,” he said. “We’re talking about the 2021 season, not this season.
“Quite why they haven’t been able to get to the details… presumably there’s some squabbling going on behind the scenes to mitigate this to explain and come up with some reasoning.
“But it’s thoroughly disappointing that we’ve now had this announcement of what’s happened, but we don’t know the consequences.”
They won’t hurt — it’ll barely be a slap on the wrist. Then the next time someone gets a similar breach they’ll get pounded.
FIA is just beyond a joke at this point in terms of running this sport. The statement Ross Brawn made regarding punishment will end up being in retrospect completely hollow words.
The FIA already said they didn’t want there to be any danger of a calculated risk by teams to over-spend and take the punishment…. but i bet all the teams are already hard at work figuring out safe breaches.
I bet all of the major teams far exceeded the cost cap, and anyone who hasn’t is stupid… It’s not possible to monitor such a thing for companies like Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Red Bull, and Alpine when they have so many conglomerates to push spending into. Need a new front wing but don’t have any money left to design it? Just ask the AMG GT-C design team to do it for you…
I bet this blowhard wouldn’t be saying this if Mercedes were found to have breached the cost cap, which I’m sure they have, as they have more conglomerates to shove money around to than most other teams. The idea of a cost cap is a joke.
Why not deduct the overspend amount from the team next years budget
That would too logical. lol
Also, why are they just now finding out that Red Bull overspent in 2021, almost one full year after last season ended??? You’re telling me the FIA doesn’t have people who can calculate all of this within a few days time, a week at the most? And why was Wolff the one who triggered this, and how did he even know?
Because Wolff is as bent as a nine-bob note, and has been planting supposedly former Mercedes staff into the FIA over recent years.