On Friday, the FIA announced that Red Bull would be getting a 10% windtunnel penalty and a $7 million fine for breaching the 2021 budget by almost $2 million. Though, the governing body claims if they filed the tax credit correctly, they violated the budget cap by only $500,000.
Thus, Red Bull would get 15% less aero-development time than Ferrari and 20% less than Mercedes. The championship winner usually receives the least mandated time in the wind tunnel.
Red Bull claims that this penalty has been harsh on them, considering they didn’t even gain a competitive edge from it. They even claim that they will lose massive time next year. But Ferrari disagrees.
Also read: Fernando Alonso calls his comments on Max Verstappen-Lewis Hamilton title comparisons as fake news
Ferrari’s boss says the opposite
Ferrari engineer Laurent Mekies says that instead of handicapping them, the fine gives an advantage to Red Bull. He claims that the Milton-Keynes-based team will use the amount saved from suspended windtunnel time to reduce the car weight.
“We at Ferrari do not understand how the 10% reduction can correspond to the same amount of lap time,” said Mekies. “The real effect of the penalty is very limited, as Red Bull can now use the money for wind tunnel on reducing the weight of the car, or what else.”
The wind tunnel sessions are costly. The whole infrastructure can cost over $50-100 million. But considering all big teams already has one, that’s not their concern, but its operations are also expensive because of electricity and maintenance bills. Thus, Mekies makes a sound agreement.
Red Bull doesn’t lose any time
Meanwhile, Mekies is not the only one from Red Bull’s opposition to find little damage to Red Bull. Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin claims that Red Bull doesn’t lose any significant time with the penalty. Contrary to what Christian Horner said earlier.
He argues that if that was the case, the team ending last in the previous season should have had a massive advantage over others since they have the most aero timings.
So, Shovlin thinks that it’s an exaggeration by the Red Bull doyen. Nevertheless, the penalty’s effect on Red Bull can only be judged next season.
Also read: 8-GP winner Daniel Ricciardo believes he has fared worse with McLaren than against Max Verstappen
