FIA backs Red Bull penalty: 'We didn't even expect it'

The FIA received strong criticism from several quarters this calendar year that it punished Red Bull Racing too lightly for exceeding its budget cap. Speaking to Motorsport.com Mohammed Ben Sulayem continues to stand behind his organisation that this was the right decision.

When it first came to light that Red Bull had broken the rules, the competition claimed that the Austrians had gained an undue advantage over the competition as a result. They therefore demanded that the FIA crack down. Red Bull was eventually fined, while it was also allowed to spend less time in the wind tunnel.

Ben Sulayem found it difficult to come up with an appropriate penalty because he had no comparative material yet. "Who knows in the first year what is going to be the outcome? We didn't even expect it," he notes in the interview.

The FIA president believes the organisation needs to look critically at the policy, making it learn from the past. "As the first year, we learned a lot from it. And we're still learning."