Mercedes and Ferrari have strongly refuted Red Bull’s accusations that the FIA’s penalty for exceeding the limit was “draconian,” arguing that the impact on the team is expected to be modest.
Red Bull received a $7m (£6.05m) penalties and a 10% reduction in aerodynamic testing on Friday for exceeding the cost cap for 2021. The penalty does not contribute to a reduction in a future budget limit. The FIA determined that they had over the £114 million limit by £1.86 million, and Red Bull reached a breached agreement with the governing body, admitting fault and accepting the sanction.
Christian Horner, the principal of Red Bull, was visibly displeased, indicating that his rivals had campaigned for the sanction and that it would have a significant influence on his team’s ability to remain competitive despite their supremacy this season. He attributed the reduction in aerodynamic time in the wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics to a loss of up to 0.5 seconds each lap.
As the dispute continued at the Autódromo Hernández Rodrguez before qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix, other competitors were not sympathetic. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took the pole position ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
In 2021, Verstappen nearly defeated Hamilton for the driver’s championship. Hamilton remarked that his team was unable to keep up with the improvements Red Bull made to Verstappen’s car.
The FIA found that Red Bull improperly utilized a theoretical tax credit worth £1.4 million. If it had been eliminated, they would have only been in violation by £432,652 However, Mercedes’ director of engineering, Andrew Shovlin, maintained Red Bull’s punishment was not excessive and emphasized the importance of every dollar.
“To call it draconian would be an exaggeration,” he remarked. “Every day, we make decisions on the range of one to two to three thousand pounds regarding what we do not do. We must assess the cost of an investment against the performance it will yield. Simply put, we lack sufficient funds; you must allocate them extremely wisely. It is tough to quantify, but the reality is that money buys performance. In terms of the cost of an update kit, [£432,652] may represent a substantial update kit.”
Ferrari’s sporting director, Laurent Mekies, defended Shovlin, stating that the sentence would have minimal influence on Red Bull. He stated, “We believe it is insufficient to compensate for the overspending that occurred.” “If it is not linked with a budget-cap reduction for them, you are free to spend the money in any way you see fit. You will spend less time in the wind tunnel, therefore you will use the savings elsewhere. What will remain of the actual impact of the penalty will be negligible.”
The budget limit was implemented to equalize team expenditures and increase competition. However, widespread dissatisfaction with the process has raised serious questions about how it was handled, including the length of time it has taken, Red Bull’s complaints that changes to financial rules were made in the middle of the season, and the possibility that their deal was negotiated behind closed doors with FIA president Mohammed ben Sulayem. Its implementation and enforcement are currently being scrutinized by teams dissatisfied with this year’s outcome on multiple fronts.
In Mexico City, Verstappen secured pole position with a scorching lap that kept him on track to break the record for most victories in a single F1 season. Russell and Hamilton’s second and third-place finishes highlighted Mercedes’s improvement, with Sergio Pérez in fourth for Red Bull and Carlos Sainz in five for Ferrari.
Verstappen has now won 13 races this season and will surpass the record he tied in Austin last week, previously held by Michael Schumacher in 2004 and Sebastian Vettel in 2013. Having two more meetings following this one, he may still advance.
Verstappen had struggled to bring his tires up to temperature in the lead-up to qualifying, but when it mattered he was in top form. In a highly competitive session, the first hot laps of Q3 were contested fiercely. Verstappen established the pace with a timing of 1 minute, 17.947 seconds. He and Hamilton were indistinguishable in terms of sector times, despite Hamilton having his first time removed for breaching track limitations.
On the final runs, Verstappen was once again phenomenal; he was the quickest through the first sector, but Hamilton and Russell overtook him in the second, with Verstappen holding the advantage on the final run to the finish line. Verstappen completed the race with a time of 1:17.775, and his lead was ultimately greater than three-tenths of a second. Mercedes will be happy with their second and third-place finishes, but the gap behind Verstappen remains substantial.
This is Verstappen’s first pole position in Mexico, despite having won here three times since the race returned to the schedule in 2015. It is his eighth victory of the year and Red Bull’s first in Mexico since Daniel Ricciardo won in 2018.
Mercedes will approach Sunday with optimism. Both drivers believed there was still room for improvement on race day, particularly on the long run into turn one, due to the vehicle’s performance in the thin air.
Valtteri Bottas finished sixth for Alfa Romeo, while Charles Leclerc finished seventh for Ferrari. Lando Norris placed eighth for McLaren, while Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon placed ninth and tenth, respectively, for Alpine.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo finished eleventh. Guanyu Zhou placed 12th for Alfa Romeo, while Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri placed 13th and 14th, respectively. Kevin Magnussen was in 15th place for Haas but has been penalized five positions.
Haas’ Mick Schumacher finished sixteenth. Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll finished 17th and 18th, although Stroll gets a three-place grid penalty. Williams’ Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi finished 19th and 20th, respectively.
