Red Bull Racing faces a handicap this season. This is because the Austrian racing stable will get 15 per cent less time in the wind tunnel over the next 12 months due to exceeding its budget ceiling in 2021. How much impact this penalty will have, nobody knows exactly. Opinions are pretty divided, as while some think Red Bull will lose tenths as a result, others think the impact of the penalty will be minimal. Olav Mol belongs to the latter camp.

In an interview with Motorsport.com that he assumes that the effect of less wind tunnel time is "not that bad"."Look, Red Bull of course shouts that it is a severe penalty. They got an excuse with it, if it didn't work out they can always say it's because of the wind tunnel time. The other teams of course shout that the penalty is not severe enough, that's how the Formula 1 world works. They would have loved to see them flicked out of the championship," he says.

Immediately after the announcement of the penalty, Christian Horner let slip that he was very disappointed with the surrender of quite a bit of wind tunnel time. According to initial calculations, it could save Red Bull up to half a second by 2023. Helmut Marko reacted a lot milder last week. The 79-year-old Red Bull adviser does not seem too worried.

According to the Ziggo Sport commentator, the FIA made the right choice in opting for a penalty of these proportions. According to him, it would not have made sense for Red Bull to have been punished even more severely. According to him, by handing out this sanction, the governing body has also directly set a precedent. "If you go over the budget cap, this is the penalty. Going over it twice will be a double penalty," Mol said.

Also decent penalty for Red Bull

Besides less wind tunnel time, Red Bull will also be fined $7 million. This fine has to be paid to the FIA, but is outside the budget ceiling. Mol finds it strange that there is a financial penalty for overspending, because now Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez 's team has to dig deep again to undo the overspending.

Besides the sporting handicap and the financial consequences, there is also a third variable that is detrimental to Red Bull. Indeed, breaching the budget ceiling has also caused image damage for the Austrian brand.