On Monday, a minor violation of the 2021 financial rules was discovered to have been committed by Red Bull.
Red Bull has publicly disagreed with the FIA’s finding that they had exceeded the budget cap set for last season.
Max Verstappen’s championship triumph in 2021 was already tainted by the controversial Safety Car restart overseen by Michael Masi, now a former race director.
However, just as the Formula 1 community was beginning to let go of it, allegations of financial rule violations have recently surfaced.
According to a recent report, Red Bull and Aston Martin exceeded the $145 million budget cap for last year, with the former allegedly exceeding it by $10 million.
Given that it exceeds the cap by more than 5%, this would be a material breach, however, the FIA determined that Red Bull had made a minor violation.
The Austrian-based team is rumored to have exceeded the cap by almost $2 million. Catering and sick pay are reported to be significant contributors to the breach.
Red Bull, however, has denied this and said that its calculations differed from those of the governing body.
They said: “We note the findings by the FIA of ‘minor overspend breaches of the financial regulations’ with surprise and disappointment,”
“Our 2021 submission was below the cost cap limit, so we need to carefully review the FIA’s findings as our belief remains that the relevant costs are under the 2021 cost cap amount.”
The team, which has won four championships, denounced the recent fault-finding remarks made by rival teams.
They added: “Despite the conjecture and positioning of others, there is of course a process under the regulations with the FIA which we will respectfully follow while we consider all the options available to us,”
On Monday, errors in Aston Martin’s paperwork led to a finding of a procedural breach. In the upcoming days, the FIA is expected to impose the final penalties on both teams.
