Helmut Marko has made a playful jab at Lewis Hamilton in response to his reaction to the Red Bull cost cap scandal. Hamilton was questioned on the issue during the weekend of the Japanese Grand Prix due to the circulation of rumours about Red Bull exceeding the cost cap.
The Englishman was hesitant to express a view that was very intense because it hadn’t been formally proven at the time he commented. He did, however, suggest that Red Bull was capable of paying for a remarkable amount of upgrades to their car during the previous season, which was ultimately won by Max Verstappen.
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Hamilton said: “What I can say is I remember last year at Silverstone we had our last upgrade. But then we would see Red Bull every weekend, or every other weekend, bringing upgrades. They had, I think, at least four more upgrades from that point.”
“If we spent 300,000 on a new floor, or adapted a wing, it would have changed the outcome of the championship naturally because we would have been in better competition in the next race if you add it on. So I hope that’s not the case.”
Ultimately, it was determined that Red Bull had exceeded the cost cap by $2.2 million, but an unclaimed tax credit had reduced that amount to just over $430,000. They accepted the terms of the FIA’s Accepted Breach Agreement, which included a $7 million fine and a 10% cut in their wind tunnel and CFD quota.
Marko, in a conversation with Auto Motor und Sport, claimed that Hamilton had been far off course when he said that Red Bull could have developed a new wing with the money they used in exceeding the threshold.
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He said: “It was the first year of the budget cap. The rules were vague. It was late to react with clarifications.”
“We had everything checked by Ernst & Young. You have to rely on something. We believed we had a safety net of three million. In the end, only 400,000 dollars remained. With that money, Hamilton is building a front wing (grins). Haas are making a whole new car.”
The cost cap scandal transpired during the final days of Red Bull GmbH’s co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz’s life, whose death was revealed on the United States Grand Prix’s qualifying day.
Mateschitz, who was 78 years old, died before the cost-cap saga came to an end, according to Marko, but the man was cognizant of what was going on. Marko said: “A meeting was planned for the week after Mexico, but that didn’t happen,”
“Mateschitz took such a beating in his entire career. Red Bull have been confronted with many accusations in the past years. So there is a certain fighting mood.”
