Red Bull must reallocate: "Never had such a serious accident"

Helmut Marko is worried about the financial consequences of Max Verstappen's crash at the Silverstone circuit. Red Bull Racing wants to help Verstappen (and itself) to the world title this season, but also to be successful next year. The budget is limited and the damage to the RB16B after the last Grand Prix is significant.

"Of course we have budgeted a certain budget for damages arising from crashes, but that is calculated on the basis of accidents in previous years. We have never had such a serious accident before," Marko said in conversation with RTL. The Red Bull advisor told the German newspaper that the incident was extremely inconvenient. The good news on Wednesday is that the Honda engine from the British GP can be used again.

Red Bull faces dilemma

Since this season there is a budget ceiling in the premier class of motor racing of 145 million dollars per season. From that amount, the 2021 car must continue to be developed, while the cars for next year must also be designed. So already there are difficult choices to be made and the damage of 1.5 million euros by the crash of Verstappen is a big bite out of the budget.

"For us, that means we have to reallocate. We don't want to restrict ourselves for 2021, but we have to save on other sides, that's what the financial experts and the engineers are working on now, that we design it in such a way that there is no performance loss for Max," Marko said. Updates cost a lot of money and it's possible that some of them can't be made now because there has to be enough money left over to develop the RB17.

Can Verstappen extend world championship lead?

Back to business as usual, as next weekend's race is in Hungary. At the Austrian racing team, they think they can settle with Mercedes. "Thanks to our continuous improvements, we should have the upper hand in Budapest, where it should also be very hot, which suits us well. We want to create a certain distance from Hamilton, so that such incidents (as in Silverstone, ed.) cannot happen again."