F1: Budget cap ‘mess’ is hanging over F1 – Brundle (Update)

The rumored Friday Press Conference by Red Bull to address the 2021 budget cap breach never happened.

To seemingly address the issue once again, it emerged on Thursday evening in Austin that Red Bull had planned to stage a press conference on Friday morning ahead of the first practice sessions getting underway at the Circuit of The Americas.

But, according to respected F1 journalist Erik van Haren of Dutch publication De Telegraaf, that press conference was cancelled.

“Christian Horner must first consult with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.”

In the midst of press conference scheduling and continued calls from rival drivers to come down hard on Red Bull, it was also been widely reported that the FIA have approached Red Bull in order to try and reach a settlement with the team.

Doing so would start the drawing of the line under the matter, but Red Bull agreeing to this and the subsequent sanctions would also be an admission of guilt when they have been so defiant that their 2021 accounts are all above aboard.

Red Bull maintains that it did not intend to breach the regulations, pointing to a failure to claim an R&D tax rebate last year worth $1.4m, sick pay for one employee and catering costs for employees not covered by the cap being included for a total breach believed to be $1.8 million.

Martin Brundle has described the ongoing F1 budget cap situation as a “mess”, saying it is not a good look for the sport.

No one except the FIA and Red Bull know the amount of overspend, it’s all rumors out there and Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton fans are saying stuff on social media that has become a cancer to the sport – all because their ‘boy’ is getting mopped up by Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc and even his teammate George Russell.

Martin Brundle, told Sky Sports F1 the situation was “hanging over” Formula 1.

“It’s a mess all around because we are talking about 2021 of course, not this season,” he said.

“We’ve got some hearsay, we don’t have any facts as to how much Red Bull have overspent, what it means, what the penalty could be.

“It’s described as a minor breach of up to $7million. Clearly, the regulations are not right and they have to be changed because most teams will tell you that’s a season-long development budget.

“The terminology is wrong. A minor breach suggests it’s not of great gravity, so clearly it is.

“Red Bull are very sensitive about it. They are saying ‘we think we’re under, they think we’re over, we want to explain why’.

“But of course, everybody’s gone to ground because the process dictates that, and it’s just bad for Formula 1 to have this hanging over us.

“Here we are [at COTA] and a magnificent event again, four in five weeks, and we are talking about finances from last season.”

“We all want it put it to bed, and we’ll see what the penalties are. We have to assume there’s some negotiation going on behind the scenes a lot at the moment.

“I actually read the document on the plane yesterday – there are 54 pages, it’s quite an interesting read.

“It’s quite a well-written document, you do need to be an accountant or an auditor to understand some of the terms, but it’s there because we needed to stop the teams just spending themselves into oblivion.

“It’s a really good tool Formula 1 has put together, one of the cornerstones of what we are now doing in Formula 1 to save the teams from themselves.”