Ted Kravitz has outlined what he thinks rivals agree are appropriate penalties as Formula 1 waits to see if Red Bull will accept the FIA’s terms for an “Accepted Breach Arrangement” in the cost cap scandal.
The FIA revealed Red Bull earlier this month for having exceeded the $145 million cost cap last season by less than 5%, according to an announcement made by the organisation.
The next step in the process is for the governing body to provide the Austrian-based side with the terms for an “Accepted Breach Arrangement” [ABA]. The terms, which are between Red Bull and the FIA and won’t be made public unless the team accepts, were reportedly handed out on Thursday.
Red Bull is allowed to disagree with the ABA and can do so by appealing the FIA’s findings to the Cost Cap Administration Panel, which will then make the final judgement. Rivals have however spoken out against the title-winning team while the paddock waits for word on Red Bull’s decision.
According to McLaren CEO Zak Brown, what they did “constitute cheating,” and there “clearly needs to be a sporting penalty” in addition to a monetary one.
Lewis Hamilton who had lost the 2021 Drivers’ Championship to Max Verstappen, has also cautioned the FIA that a “slap on the wrist” will not suffice because then there “might as well not have a cost cap in future.”
Kravitz thinks that the punishment that would be considered as appropriate by all is a financial one coupled with some “public” shame.
He told Sky Sports F1 that: “The other teams will demand that if there is a penalty to be meted out that it is both sufficiently harsh in the sporting way and in a financial way, and in a way that has an effect on Red Bull going into next season.
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“Because even though we are talking about the budget cap for last season, what all the other teams are saying is this has an effect, a beneficial effect for Red Bull going into 2022 this year, and indeed going into 2023.
“So I think a lot of teams are thinking well if you can exclude them from this year’s Constructors’ Championship, which they are just about to win, take away all of their money – Red Bull are well financed from all their sponsors anyway so it’s not going to be too much of a problem if they lose $150 million in prize money from Formula One.
“And have the effect of putting them at the back of the pit lane order for next year, that would be enough of a kind of public sanction if they have been proved to have broken the rules to make it a deterrence for anybody else to do something similar in the future.”
The Red Bull team is not getting much love from rival teams during a weekend where they are most likely to win the Constructors’ Championship title.
Kravitz added: “There’s a lot of unease from other teams, I think it’s fair to say Red Bull are not the most popular team in the paddock.”
“A lot of the other teams feel that Red Bull haven’t been playing by the rules that they’ve been playing by.
“That’s certainly backed up by the conversations Red Bull are having to have with the FIA as to whether they were in excess as to the amount of money they could spend or whether they weren’t.
“This will rumble on for quite a while. Red Bull says they are ways of accounting in their figures that prove they were within the figure of the cost cap rules.
“Other teams say that is ridiculous, you’ve had a lot of time to discuss these things and iron out any areas of interpretation or misinterpretation.”
