Competitors don't spare Red Bull: 'I hope for a painful penalty'

Carlos Sainz and Valtteri Bottas have also spoken out about Red Bull Racing exceeding its budget cap. For instance, the Finn thinks that a painful and harsh punishment should follow.

Red Bull Racing is under fire after the FIA announced that the team had exceeded its budget cap in 2021. Red Bull points to a difference of opinion and disagrees with the FIA. Red Bull's competitors, meanwhile, are doing all they can to foist the highest possible penalty on the Austrian racing stable.

Competitors hope for heavy penalty for Red Bull

''I think every team and every driver, we just want clarity, first of all, and second, fairness. And we all know how much 1, 2, 3, 4 – I don't know what's the number – million can make to car development and car speed in Formula 1. That's why years ago everyone was spending 350 million. I just hope that if there's a penalty the penalty is relatively important to take the appetite away from overspending 2 or 3 million,'' the Ferrari driver said at the press conference.

Bottas, who was still competing for Mercedes against Red Bull in 2021, agrees with Sainz. ''I feel like rules are the rules and if you don't follow them, there should be a penalty that really hurts. So let's hope so, that it's a good penalty that really, really hurts them because, like I said, I was sitting in the fight last year for the constructors. Yes, we got that but we missed the drivers title by a few points and a few millions, it can make a big, big difference,'' said the current Alfa Romeo driver.

It would be a small overshoot of the budget cap of around two million dollars. However, Red Bull Racing disagrees with the FIA and refuses to sign an agreement. The team is said to have handed in a calculation in which it was four million dollars under the budget cap, and the team is sticking to that calculation.