“An employee of Mercedes moved to FIA”: Red Bull chief accuses Toto Wolff’s team for leaking their cost cap data

Red Bull has been under fire over the last few weeks after the FIA found them guilty of breaching the cost cap. The latter’s introduction itself was not a popular decision among the top teams, but they have been at Red Bull’s throats for overspending.

After an investigation, the FIA decided to penalize the Milton-Keynes-based outfit by fining them a sum of $7 million. On top of that, they have also been given a 10% reduction in wind tunnel time for future developments. Most of the F1 community feels that this punishment is too light but Red Bull insists that it is going to cost them close to half a second.

However, Red Bull are also concerned as to how the FIA got to know about their cost breach. As far as their chief advisor Helmut Marko is concerned, Mercedes leaked documents to the governing body of the sport.

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Ex- Mercedes employee was responsible for handling Red Bull budget cap documents, says Helmut Marko

This is not the first time Marko has raised concerns about Mercedes’ close connection to the FIA. HE previously stated how the Silver Arrows’ team principal Toto Wolff is close to Shaila-Ann Rao.

In an interview with RTL, the Austrian mentioned the fact that Rao was in charge of handling the budget-cap investigation at the FIA.

“An employee of Mercedes moved to the FIA,” the 79-year-old said. “Worked on these documents for the cost cap at Mercedes and was responsible for checking them at the FIA. There is certainly a compliance violation. The whole thing does not make a good impression.”

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Marko insists budget-cap penalty was due to pressure from other F1 teams

The budget cap in F1 was introduced only last year. While it wasn’t a popular decision among the richer teams, they were forced to comply with it. When they got to know that Red Bull had breached it, they took every opportunity in hand to make sure the Austrian team were punished.

This is what led to them getting penalized according to Marko. The Red Bull boss feels that without the pressure from teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, the FIA would not have acted so harshly.

Marko also added that plenty of teams will breach the budget cap in the future. However, the penalty will not be as harsh as teams will be more used to it.