You can see that a lot of people are working on it, and it is clear that the FIA is going to hand out penalties. It is difficult to say exactly what those penalties will be. The terms in the regulations are tricky, because what is reasonable for one person is not reasonable for another.
There has been a budget cap overrun by Red Bull and Aston Martin, but you don’t know how much substantively. There are statements from Ross Brawn in the past in which he states that these are not rules you can break, and that they will take the points for fraud. That would be about 2021.
It seems to me that they are going to do it so rigorously now. I think that if something has happened, there is a good explanation for it. For example, there was previously talk of a high receipt for engines, after which it turned out that the development of the Honda engine was on one account – while the costs for Red Bull and AlphaTauri should have been split.
Red Bull will not have committed fraud intentionally
If you have deliberately done extra wind tunnel work or booked costs through other BVs, you will receive a penalty. But I think the FIA rules are so strict that none of the teams even think about cheating. So it may have happened out of ignorance. Only the FIA knows at this point how serious it is.
You can assume that they have the best accountants in the big three teams and that they don’t make mistakes. I predict no championships will be taken away or anything like that. A warning and fine may arrive. But the consequences won’t be as disastrous as some people think.
#Doornbos #Penalty #Red #Bull #budget #cap #violation #disastrous