Red Bull boss Christian Horner is "certainly not aware" of any potential breaches of the Formula 1 cost-cap regulations, as two teams are reported to have broken the rules in 2021. On Friday morning, it was reported by German and Italian outlets that Red Bull and Aston Martin broke the $145 million USD cost cap imposed in 2021 - as the FIA prepare to release the first financial results for teams next week. If any team is found to have broken the cost cap regulations, any potential penalty could range from a fine if it is a 'minor violation' up to disqualification for a severe breach. But Horner is confident that Red Bull have not broken the new financial regulations.
Horner sure Red Bull meets the rules
"[I'm] certainly not aware of any [breach]," Horner explained to Sky Sports F1 after FP1 at the Singapore Grand Prix. "The council submitted way back in March, so it's been a long process with the FIA going through [everything] and we're in that process as we speak. "They are rightly following that process, and I think mid-next week is when they declare their certificates. "I think that certainly our submission was below the cap and it is down to the FIA to follow their process, which they are currently doing. "It's a brand new and very complicated set of regulations, so how rules are interpreted and applied inevitably going to be subjective between the teams and I'm sure as the years go, by things will get tidied up. "We're confident in our submissions. As I said, the FIA is in a process and I think there's always going to be rumours. I've heard of major breaches. I'm certainly not aware of that."
Red Bull did 'due diligence' - Horner
The cost cap was imposed in 2020 in a bid to control spending of the bigger teams, with the $145 million limit forcing bigger squads such as Red Bull or Mercedes to work down to it, while allowing others such as McLaren or Haas to scale up. Horner was keen to point out the relative immaturity of the regulations, but was still confident in them. "Remember, this is the first time this has ever happened," he explained. "We do our due diligence, we get audited anyway, it's a similar process to that of working with an auditor. "It's slightly bespoke to Formula 1 and clarifications have been coming even after the submissions were made. So you can see how immature the process is, but the FIA obviously been working hard on it and doing obviously the best they can. "So they would have looked at every team's submitted accounts and they're [the FIA] following a process and that conclusion date has been moved from July to September to October but it's a big job. It's a lot for them to get to get through. "We're very confident in our submission, so anything different from that, we'll wait to hear from the FIA."
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