Yahoo Movies Red Bull and Aston Martin Reportedly Breached 2021 F1 Cost Cap
Formula 1 introduced a cost cap last year in an attempt to level the playing field. The thinking is that with a budgetary limit in place, teams can't simply spend their way to the top. In the 2010s, Red Bull and Mercedes dominated the sport, but in this new cost-cap era, theoretically, this won't happen anymore. In 2021, there was a $145 million budget in place for teams—excepting marketing costs and the salaries of drivers plus the three highest paid employees at the team—and both Red Bull and Aston Martin are rumored to have exceeded it.
This is unsurprising. F1 teams look for advantages wherever they can find them, sometimes via loophole, other times by outright cheating. According to Racer, the FIA will certify whether teams have met the 2021 cost caps next Wednesday. Overspending the budget by up to 5 percent can result in reprimands and/or points deductions, while overspending beyond 5 percent can lead to exclusion from the championship. Racer, citing anonymous sources, says that Red Bull and Aston Martin went over the $145 million mark, though it's not publicly known by how much.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports the team is "not aware" of any breaches to the cap.
"It's a brand new set of regulations and a set of very complicated regulations, so how rules are interpreted and applied are inevitably going to be subjective between the teams and I'm sure as the years go by things will get tidied up," Horner said. "But we are confident in our submission and as I said the FIA are in a process, and I think there is always going to be rumours, I've heard of major breaches and whatever, I'm certainly not aware of that."
Aston Martin said in a statement that "[w]e have submitted our 2021 reporting, we are in discussion with the FIA, and we are awaiting certification."
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won his maiden championship last year, narrowly beating out Lewis Hamilton in a controversial season finale.
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