Ex-Mercedes employee reportedly leaked confidential information about Red Bulls 2021 budget cap breach to Toto Wolff

A huge deal was made of Red Bulls budget cap saga during the 2022 F1 season.

Ex-Mercedes employee reportedly leaked confidential information about Red Bulls 2021 budget cap breach to Toto Wolff

Christian Horner and Toto Wolff (Credits: Imago)

The 2023 F1 season’s on-track action came to an end during the recently concluded Abu Dhabi GP. while the on-track action has come to a standstill, it has recently come to light that in 2022, the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff had access to Red Bull’s 2021 budget cap breach documents.

It has also been made known by Soymotor that the documents were leaked to Toto Wolff by the former acting general secretary of the FIA, Shaila-Ann Rao, who interestingly happens to be Mercedes’s past employee. This is big news coming from the world of the pinnacle of motor racing.

YouTube video

Last year, during the Singapore GP, the controversy over the budget cap ceiling got a bit out of hand when Red Bull’s infraction was made public. They exceeded the 2021 limit and were sanctioned with a limitation of wind tunnel hours for the 2023 Formula 1 season.

FS Video

However, while the news exploded like a time bomb within the F1 paddock, all the F1 bosses/team members were not given the same documents, that were provided to the Mercedes team principal. The specific document Wolff was provided with had details about Red Bull’s confidential information.

How will the various teams react to Toto Wolff having access to Red Bulls 2021 documents?

While the 2021 saga eventually cooled off during the 2022 F1 season, the revealing of the above-mentioned news is surely going to get a reaction out of the various F1 teams. Having been given different documents in comparison to Toto Wolff is surely not going to sit well with the various F1 team principals.

Toto Wolff (Credits: Autosport), Helmut Marko (Credits: Planet F1), and, Fred Vasseur (Credits: GPFans)
Toto Wolff (Credits: Autosport), Helmut Marko (Credits: Planet F1), and, Fred Vasseur (Credits: GPFans)

Moreover, there is the Milton-Keynes-based Red Bull F1 team itself who are not going to let this slide easily. The documents that were released had specific information about the Red Bull 2021 budget cap and thus, Christian Horner and Co. are most probably going to come out with some kind of statement.

The upcoming days/weeks are going to be pivotal in the above-mentioned saga and the FIA could also come under the firing line. The various F1 teams are going to demand answers and fireworks could explode quite soon. The mentioned saga is far from getting over.

In case you missed it: