“It’s a restriction for sure that will affect us,” Adrian Newey shares his thoughts on the cost cap penalty and its effect on the Aero department
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Adrian Newey
Adrian Newey has been a pioneer in the success of Red Bull Racing. Right after he joined the team after exiting McLaren, everyone thought that he was throwing his career away. However, 6 drivers championships and 5 constructors championships later, the critics have surely shut their mouth. The 2023 season however is gonna be a tough challenge for the F1 veteran.
From the 2021 season, F1 had introduced a cost cap that would prevent teams from spending a lot. Red Bull went on to spend slightly more and as a matter of fact, breached the cost cap. The team breached the cost cap by £1,864,000 ($2.2m) or 1.6% of the allotted amount. This meant that a penalty was already coming their way and it surely did.
Red Bull was demanded to pay a $7 million dollar fine along with a 10% deduction in the car development time for a period of 12 months. This meant less time to test parts in the wind tunnel which came as a huge blow to Adrian Newey. The aero department’s job just became harder. Here is what he had to say regarding their approach to 2023.
Adrian Newey cannot put an exact estimate on the time lost due to the penalty
Here is what the F1 legend had to say. “There’s no testing, is it’s very difficult to put an answer that will cost us so many tenths of a second per lap. And the reduction of internal testing means we can therefore evaluate less, less different components, less different ideas if we’re really smart and always puts on the right things on the model; then it doesn’t make much difference.”
“But that’s not how it works; there are always some parts that you hope will work and don’t and vice versa. So, it’s difficult. It’s a restriction for sure that will affect us. I think then there’s a regulation, a small regulation change over the winter, which is lifting of the floor edge by 50 millimetres, which of course, sounds tiny, but in reality, it’s quite a significant aerodynamic change,” he continued .
2022 has been a freakishly good season for Adrian Newey and Red Bull racing with the team absolutely dominating the season and leaving with both the constructors and driver’s championship trophies. With the cost cap penalty, it will be interesting to see how the team will cope against their rivals when the 2023 season commences.
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