The FIA announced on Friday at the Mexican Grand Prix that it had reached an Accepted Infringement Agreement (ABA) with Red Bull, after verifying that the team had exceeded the budget limit of 145 million dollars in the 2021 season. Red Bull was fined 7 million dollars (just over seven million euros) and was deducted 10% of the time allowed in the wind tunnel in the next 12 months.
When the FIA published the results of the teams’ exercises, Red Bull fiercely denied any wrongdoing , but ended up accepting the deal with the federation on Friday, “for the good of Formula 1”.
The FIA ruling detailed a number of areas that Red Bull had wrongly excluded from its cost accounts, leading to £1.8m (€2.1m) in overspend.
One of these was catering , which Red Bull used to justify the budget overrun, claiming they had misinterpreted the rule.
In Mexico on Friday, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner acknowledged that “a lot of things” had been done about the catering allocation, joking about it: “This year we gave our staff too much food.”
He went on to explain that Red Bull thought catering expenses were excluded from the budget cap as it is a company-wide benefit and not something related solely to the F1 team.
“Catering within Red Bull has always been a benefit that has been provided by the group, a benefit of working within the Red Bull group, and free food and drink has always been provided,” said Horner.
“So, as a Red Bull policy, we saw it as a kind of excluded cost. Aggressive, but we found it acceptable.”
“The FIA took a different view on that, and said food was not excludable. Fair enough. But what was included was our entire catering bill for our entire company, that is £1.4m in food, drinks and coffees.
“Red Bull Powertrains had nothing to do with Red Bull Racing until this year, and its costs are included. So we have a difference of opinion on how it was applied.
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Foto de: Red Bull Content Pool
Horner also named other areas where Red Bull believed it might be exceeding the spending limit, which is why they went from being £3m under the limit to over £1.8m .
One of them was related to taxes , which Red Bull did not include as part of its results, which would have covered 1.4 million pounds, reducing the difference to just over 400,000 pounds. Furthermore, a change in status in June would also have meant a further £1.2m, had Red Bull been able to reintroduce the exercise.
Sick leave was another area Horner said he disagreed with the FIA, as Red Bull had excluded payments made to staff whose illness prevented them from continuing to work.
“We have always considered that we have to support our workers in health and in illness,” he said. “We have supported staff who have been ill for a long period of time, and we will continue to do so in the future,” Horner said.
“We considered that sick leave was a cost that could be excluded, because it does not play any role in the performance of the team during a grand prix. Unfortunately, the regulations can be interpreted in two ways.”
“If the person had died, which fortunately did not happen, the cost would have been excludable. Fortunately, they did not die, but that causes them to be computed within the financial year.”
The last major area in which Horner claimed that Red Bull and the FIA had disagreed related to staff leaving the company , who were placed on projects outside the F1 team, but still had their salaries included in the calculations. cost limit.
“We had a staff member on a temporary contract who got an offer from another team, Hollywood style,” Horner explained.
“At that time, you see that his heart and mind were not within the company, so he was transferred from our Formula 1 department to the advanced technology department.”
“From there, the individual left the company, but the time that was not dedicated to the activity of Formula 1 was included in the balance sheet. So, again, that was a cost that we did not count on.
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