The day after its 2022 world championship battle was settled, Formula 1 is braced for news that could – in its most extreme interpretation – affect the outcome of the 2021 title fight.
Later on Monday, the FIA is due to publish the results of its checks on teams’ compliance with the $145million budget cap during the 2021 season.
It emerged during the recent Singapore Grand Prix that two teams had breached the cap, with the paddock convinced that Red Bull and Aston Martin were the organisations in question.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been adamant that his company’s cost cap submission met the regulations.
“We wait with interest to see what happens on Monday,” he said to Sky during the Japanese GP weekend.
“But again, we feel that we’ve absolutely complied with the cost cap, with the regulations, [are] happy with our submission and are waiting to hear what the feedback is.”
The cost cap rules quantify breaches as either ‘minor’ or ‘material’, with a range of penalties available for each.
Possible penalties for minor breaches include the docking of championship points, though it’s believed this is considered to be too draconian an outcome in the current cases.
Suspension from one or more stages of a competition (but not the race, only other sessions), limitations to aerodynamic or other testing and reduction of the cost cap are also possible.
It is understood that the expected 2021 transgressions fall into the minor category, meaning an overspend of under 5% – around $7.25m.
But key figures at Ferrari and Mercedes have repeatedly stressed that the use of ‘minor’ is misleading terminology.
Both have offered various interpretations of how much laptime could be ‘bought’ by overspends that fall within the FIA’s minor bracket.
At Suzuka on Sunday Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto stressed that his team’s designs were “cars that have been developed maintaining and respecting the budget cap itself” and reiterated that gains made by an overspend in one season could carry over into another.
“We know how much, even if it’s a minor breach, it would have implied in terms of performance,” he said.
“I mentioned $5m is about half a second, even one or two million is about one or two-tenths which is about from being second on the grid or being on pole and maybe having the fastest car.
“Obviously it’s about 2021. It’s an advantage you gain over the following seasons.”
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who lost out to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in last season’s ferociously close title fight, argued last week that even a $300,000 additional spend would have changed the outcome of the 2021 battle.
“I don’t want to say anything really but what can say is I remember last year in Silverstone we had our last upgrade and fortunately it was great and we could fight with it,” he told Sky.
“But then we would see Red Bull every weekend or every other weekend bringing upgrades. They had, I think, at least four more upgrades from that point.
“If we had spent $300,000 on a new floor or an adapted wing it would have changed the outcome of the championship, naturally, because we would have been in better competition in the next race you had it on.”
Horner and Verstappen have both vigorously hit back at their rivals’ comments over the past fortnight.
Monday’s FIA declaration will answer the immediate question of what the breaches were and what penalties will be applied.
But it will just be the start of the fallout.
As Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies said in Singapore, rivals will want to see “severe action” over any breach that could have had a clear impact on performance, with Binotto adding in Japan that the “penalty has to be significant” if there has been a transgression.
Such rhetoric means the chances of Ferrari and Mercedes being dissatisfied with the way breaches are punished must be high.
And even if that dissatisfaction can only lead to relatively inconsequential rage, there have been dire warnings from both ends of the grid that anything teams can interpret as the budget cap being inadequately or only meekly policed will severely harm the system in future years.
The FIA has deliberately avoided being absolutely specific about what penalties would be imposed for particular types of offence, hoping the fear of severe outcomes would be a sufficient deterrent.
It was wary that teams might otherwise make judgements on the performance gain a breach could allow versus the scale of penalty – and potentially decide they could ‘afford’ the penalty.
The announcement regarding the breaches was initially planned for last Wednesday ahead of the Japanese GP, then delayed to Monday.
This in itself caused some disquiet in the F1 paddock.
“Interesting to see that it’s taking so long to issue it, because it was due days ago,” said Binotto.
“Why we’re waiting so long, simply because there are discussions behind which are simply giving, let me say, truth to the fact that there are rumours and speculations about maybe teams having been in breach.
“So I think it’s simply confirming that there are discussions, because there is something not clear in there.”
And the level of detail offered about both the breaches and the nature of punishments is going to be key as well.
“What we need and what I’m expecting is full transparency and clarity on the discussions that may have happened,” Binotto added.
