“It doesn’t hurt them,” Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner wanted Red Bull to get a budget-cap penalty for their breach
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Guenther Steiner
Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner and many others were of the firm belief that the penalty that Red Bull received for their cost cap breach was insufficient. A few years back, Ross Brawn has said during the unveiling of the new budget cap rules that those who exceed it will face severe punishments. However the penalty that Red Bull received doesn’t seem to be as fierce as people expected it to be.
Red Bull were deemed of breaching the Cost Cap by £1,864,000 ($2.2m) or 1.6% of the allotted amount. After negotiating with the FIA, the team has gone into an agreement with the governing body of the sport where they has accepted their wrongdoing and will be paying for it. Other F1 teams along with Red Bull racing has a diverse response to what was put in front of them.
For their Cost Cap infringement, Red Bull has been hit with a $7 million dollar fine which will have to be paid within the next 30 days along with a 10% deduction in the car development time for a period of 12 months. Guenther Steiner was of the opinion that the team should have gotten a harsher penalty somewhat in the lines of a budget cap reduction. Here is what the Haas team principal had to say about this.
Guenther Steiner not happy with the penalty that Red Bull received.
Steiner was adamant that a stricter penalty should be put in place to insure that no team repeats this again. “Seven million dollars is a lot of money but it doesn’t hurt them,” Steiner told RTL. “Now if they [the FIA] had said they could spend five million dollars less than the rest of the teams next year, a sanction would have really damaged the development of the car,” he said.
With the fine that Red Bull has received, they can still go on to focus development on other parts of the car as there is no deduction in their budget. This basically mean that the 2022 champions will still be able to spend the same amount of money like every other F1 team. This seems a bit unfair from Guenther Steiner’s perspective as a deduction in the budget cap would have been much more fair to Red Bulls competitors.
“There are then opportunities to continue working on something else,” said the Italian. “Development is not at a standstill. It’s just moved to another area of the car. You can work on the weight, for example. So much is possible with that money. For example, if they had said ‘next year you have five million dollars less in the budget cap – I’m just naming a number now, I don’t want to stick to it – than all the other teams,” he continued.
Guenther Steiner and Haas have had a good season so far as both their drivers have finished in the point’s multiple times. However there is still the question of who will get the second seat at Haas. With Kevin Magnussen locked in, it’s all upto Mick Schumacher and his performances in the last two races which will determine if he gets the seat or not.
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Varad Joshi
(940 Articles Published)