Red Bull says the FIA has agreed to pause its discussions with the team over its budget cap infringement following the death of Dietrich Mateschitz yesterday.
The team announced Mateschitz, who founded the Red Bull brand and invested heavily in its motorsport activities, had passed away ahead of the qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas yesterday.Red Bull and the FIA have been in negotiations since the sport’s governing body announced the team had exceeded the 2021 budget cap and committed a procedural breach of the rules. The FIA has offered Red Bull an Accepted Breach Agreement under which the team can choose to affirm it broke the rules and take the penalty chosen by the sport’s governing body.
A statement issued by Red Bull on Sunday said those talks have been temporarily paused. “Following the passing of Mr Mateschitz, all conversations with the FIA around Cost Cap and next steps are on hold until further notice,” it said. “The deadline for agreement has been extended and we expect talks to pick back up middle of the week.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said yesterday that while its discussions with the FIA are confidential the details will be made public once an agreement is reached.
“Once, hopefully, this situation is concluded there will be complete transparency and I will talk you through the reasoning behind our submission and the position that we had, as to why we felt that each of the line items that have been challenged we believe there’s a contrary position,” he said in yesterday’s FIA press conference.
In 2020 the FIA reached a private agreement with Ferrari following an investigation into the legality of the team’s power unit. Horner indicated a similar arrangement will not take place again.
“The whole thing should be transparent,” he said. “There’s going to be no private, secret deal. I think it would all be absolutely above board. This is very different to a previous situation.”
F1 plans to pay tribute to Mateschitz prior to the performance of the national anthem ahead of today’s United States Grand Prix.
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SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
23rd October 2022, 17:21
Understandable to give the team a few days as no doubt the top brass will be traveling to attend the service.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
23rd October 2022, 18:26
Horner again is being the populist politician he has always been. Both situations are totally different to begin with. RBR cannot simply reach a private settlement because they are in a much worse situation than Ferrari. Both teams have broken the rules, RBR were caught plain and simple while Ferrari got away with it.
bosyber (@bosyber)
23rd October 2022, 18:32
For that part I can agree @tifoso1989, though in light of the main thrust of the article I think I’d not focus on that bit for now.
The Dolphins
23rd October 2022, 18:38
I hope, as the years pass, details of Ferrari’s PU technology will come to light. I’m curious to learn about the technology and how they achieved what they did.
SHR Modding
23rd October 2022, 23:58
It’s already been explained how they did it. Not officially of course but the info is here in the last section of this video https://youtu.be/BwqcYXHx9fc
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
24th October 2022, 7:59
SHR Modding
I doubt that. Everyone knew what Ferrari were up to, major fuel flow, though even with rival teams pointing out to what Ferrari were doing the FIA didn’t have any clue about how they were achieving it. After the FIA introduced a technical directive in the US GP, they were almost certain that Ferrari will be get caught. They have observed a change with regard to how they were operating their PU and deploying power but they were still apparently doing what they were doing albeit to a lesser degree.
The FIA confiscated Ferrari PU components at the Brazilian GP and kept investigating it during the winter but still didn’t have any clue about what Ferrari were doing. The only way to know was to get Ferrari tell them what they were doing and help them close that loophole to stop other teams from using it.
Otherwise, they will take Ferrari to court and with thorough investigation by the industry experts they can prove that Ferrari were running an illegal PU and if they go down that route and even if the process will be long, Ferrari will get the harshest possible punishment. Another thing is that part of what Ferrari were doing was involved a third party IP which is believed to be Schell fuel technology that didn’t want it to go public. That’s why the settlement was private.
If the FIA did have any proof about Ferrari running an illegal PU, then they wouldn’t have refrained from punishing them properly especially with Jean Todt in charge who has never overcome the fact that he was sacked from the Ferrari CEO role by Sergio Marchionne. With the private settlement, Ferrari were affected to the point that it took 2 seasons to return to their form.
hyoko
23rd October 2022, 19:45
First day without a post about the budget cap here: Feb 29th
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
23rd October 2022, 22:57
Hopefully this is the end of Red Bull. They make a great villain, but the cheating is wearing thin after last year and now this.