“That’s an amount we can’t easily find anymore”– Red Bull reveals the financial loss Mercedes have caused them in the last two races.
The last two races have been a horror for Red Bull, and they had little contribution in those results because they were the victims of two separate collisions made by Lewis Hamilton in Silverstone and Valtteri Bottas in Hungaroring.
Red Bull, from there onwards, has been making remarks at the penal code of the FIA, where Sebastian Vettel was disqualified for an insufficient amount of fuel. In contrast, Mercedes drivers have to suffer nothing for causing massive damages to Red Bull.
In a recent interview, Helmut Marko revealed that Red Bull had suffered a €3 million loss, and they have to lighten it from their own budget, which is further damaging to their prospects.
“Until the last two races, the first half of the season was positive,” Marko told Motorsport Magazin. “Then everything came together negatively.
“As a result, we have to ask ourselves whether the penalty system is justified after two errors by Mercedes. Maybe there should be different standards [levels of penalties].
“Antonio Giovinazzi gets a stop/go penalty after speeding in the pit lane, and Sebastian Vettel is disqualified for not having enough fuel in his tank, while the 0.3-litres that was in his tank would have been enough for control [a fuel sample].
“On the other hand, we have two broken engines due to [the actions of] Mercedes drivers and that means that we have to take a hard hit financially. We have three million damages and that’s an amount we can’t easily find anymore.”
Have to do something about the losses
While Ferrari has asked the FIA to make the guilty driver’s team pay up for the losses the victims obtain from a collision, Red Bull has asked to remove such costs from the budget cap.
“Such things can be the decisive factor in the title fight,” said Marko. “That is why we need to look at it differently and whether the drivers who caused it has been negligent and whether something can be arranged.”
“For example, that this damage does not count in the budget cap or that we can use some kind of joker.”
