Red Bull ‘Minor Overspend Breach’ A Contradiction In Terms
A “minor overspend breach”. That is what Red Bull, the team for whom Max Verstappen drove when he won the 2021 World Championship in the most dramatic, or rather ludicrous, of fashions, have been found guilty of.
There is a lot to unpack from this situation.
One’s mind instinctively leaps to Lewis Hamilton, who fell so agonisingly short of clinching a record 8th World Championship in a controversial finish in Abu Dhabi last year.
It was a loss already tarnished by extraneous circumstances, which Hamilton admitted almost made him lose faith in the sport, and this most recent revelation will do no favours in healing his still-smarting wounds.
One must also lend a thought to Max Verstappen. Max is, after all, a man who drives a car as fast as he can. He’s not the administrator responsible for these decisions, and yet as the face of it all he will have to take much of the brunt.
Whatever the outcome, his first world title is forever tainted, and not on his watch.
And yet, beyond the obvious challenges surrounding the legitimacy of Verstappen’s title and how the FIA ought to reprimand Red Bull, what remains the most perplexing aspect of this situation is this very idea of a ‘minor’ breach of the cost cap.
Just take a moment to consider this concept, one that is at worst oxymoronic and at best incongruous. A breach is a breach, is it not, whether it be a single pound or a million of them?
Of course, there is nuance in all aspects of sport, its capacity to be subjective the reason why it’s so compelling. Outside of a sporting perspective, for instance, Red Bull’s crime is relatively slight.
But within this context, subjectivity simply doesn’t make sense. Formula 1 has implemented a definitive spending cap limit, one that F1 chief Ross Brawn was very objective about: “If you fraudulently breach the financial regulations, you will be losing your championship”.
And yet this 5% threshold has given Red Bull the space to don said cap and adjust it to their bespoke fit.
A spade must be called a spade. Red Bull cheated in 2021, and the idea that their actions are somehow minor because they only cheated a little bit goes against everything that makes sport valuable.
It is the essence of sporting competition that participants strive for that extra 1% of performance, using any possible means to gain an advantage; indeed it is this principle exactly that Red Bull have utilised. However, this sporting battle only works when participants do so while adhering to its rules, to principles of ‘just war’.
This is where Red Bull have strayed.
In many ways, this situation is not about the extra money they spent, but about their attitude to the cap in general.
It was only in July this year that Christian Horner, Team Principal of Red Bull, was vocal in his opposition to the FIA budget caps, and now just a few months later his team have been caught in breach of them.
The truth is yet to be fully disclosed, but the optics are nonetheless clear. Red Bull had little respect for the cap, instead trying to find ways around it or, indeed, get away with breaking it.
And Horner’s reputation has certainly not helped the situation.
He has never been a character to keep quiet. A quick Google search for ‘Christian Horner complains …’ provides ample evidence of someone happy to throw stones from his glass house, as long as that house’s trophy shelf is filled with another world championship.
If the shoe where on Mercedes’ foot, there is no doubt Horner would be calling scandal and vying for their title to be stripped. The sport must come down hard on Red Bull, not just as a response to their actions but to set and example and protect F1’s spend cap from future abuses.
As the ghosts of the 2021 season once again rise from their graves, it seems the closing pages of last season, which the sport has tried so desperately to finally conclude, are still waiting for i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed.
