This morning, the FIA finally announced the penalties for Red bull racing after the team exceeds Formula 1’s cost cap in 2021. It will have wind tunnels and reduced CFD hours, but at the end of the day – but lost in the online presentation is Aston Martin making mistakes too. declare a cost cap, and possibly for the funniest reason in the world. It messes up the expenses for office furniture.
This interesting fact was brought to my attention by Ryan King of Jalopnik, who pointed out the concern via Twitter:
While Red Bull was fined for a “minor overspending violation”, Aston Martin was hit with a $450,000 fine for breaching “procedure”. The FIA notes that Aston’s affairs take into account the fact that the team has “incorrectly excluded and/or adjusted costs in the calculation of the associated costs”. As the FIA points out, that includes “table and chair costs,” along with food service, unrecorded costs and losses related to sponsorship services, signing bonuses, and simulation fees. .
In essence, the FIA decided that the group was just looking for paperwork and had no intention of violating the cost cap to gain an advantage. After all, the team finished in a meager seventh place on the constructors leaderboard and only faced more difficulties this year. Inaccurate office furniture expense records probably don’t make the team any better or worse than the competition.
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Further, the FIA lauded Aston Martin’s acceptance of the fact that it did breach the cost cap — a significant departure from Red Bull Racing’s adamant denial that it could possibly have overspent.
The team has 30 days to pay back its $450,000 fine, after which point the overspend will be swept under the rug. Presumably the team will be a little more keen on accurately filing office furniture costs in the near future.
