Christian Horner responds to comments made by Frederic Vasseur regarding the F1 cost cap breach penalty to be light.
With three Grands Prix down, the score is Red Bull three out of three. So far, the only blemish on the Milton Keynes based outfit was Sergio Perez’s fifth place at Melbourne a fortnight ago, and even then he set fastest lap in the race. This is a low despite Max Verstappen’s Jeddah qualifying issue where he came back fine in the race.
Owing to their cost cap breach in 2021, they were fined but more significantly, they lost 10% in the wind tunnel time for this campaign as it stands. However, with such a significant start to the campaign, there has been a few murmurings from other teams, namely Ferrari, advising the penalty was incidental and perhaps intimating it should have been harsher.
When he was the Alfa Romeo team boss last year, Frederic Vasseur had similar thoughts about the penalty to Red Bull and he maintains that as the Ferrari F1 chief. The Frenchman is not denying the good work done by the Milton Keynes team, but he feels the penalty could have been a bit more harsher given the gains.
“It means that for me the penalty is marginal,” said Vasseur to media. “They did a good job but I’m still convinced that the penalty was very light. If you consider we will improve the car’s performance by a bit less than one second over the season in terms of aero, you get a penalty of 10 per cent of this, it’s one tenth, it is equivalent to a loss of 0.1secs”.
“As it is not a linear progression, it is probably less, and as you are allowed to spend this money somewhere else, on weight saving and so on, for me the penalty is marginal. I don’t want to say they didn’t do a good job because, honestly, they did a very good job on the car. I am not trying to find an excuse at all, but if you ask me if the penalty is too light, I say yes”.
“I’m not sure the effect of the penalty is mega. And if you consider also that you have an advantage at the beginning of the season because you spend more the year before,” summed up Vasseur. It could be deemed that Vassuer’s comments are possibly sounding like sour grapes as Ferrari have had a poor start their campaign compared to 2022, but as noted the Frenchman is keeping with his statements from last year.
For Red Bull and Horner, it is not surprising that such comments are made especially with the raw advantage they have at the moment. The Brit reckons teams like Ferrari and Mercedes can still catch them or get closer as it is too early in the season.
“Everybody’s got an opinion and I think everybody’s free to have an opinion,” said Horrner to Sky News. “The team have done a great job over the winter on limited wind-tunnel time that we’ve had to develop this car, and of course that will have an impact later into the year and on next yea”r.
“So on a snapshot of three races, I think it’s still hugely premature in (terms of) this season, there’s an awful lot of racing still to go. There’s a lot of things that can change. We’re hearing of big updates coming for both Ferrari and Mercedes when we get back to Europe. So we’re certainly not taking anything for granted, we’re just focused on ourselves, doing the best job we can within the constraints that we have”.
“We’re doing the best that we can with what we’ve got and we know that it’s tough penalty, it’s one that we’re taking on the chin and we’re applying ourselves in the best way that we possibly can,” summed up Horner. One might read his reply with great amusement as all teams would take the results Red Bull have achieved so far in a heartbeat.
Horner has a point insofar as there is an awful lot of racing to go and they may or may not feel the loss of the 10% as the season goes on so they may be at a disadvantage at some stage but at the same time, the season already is looking like theirs to lose.
Here’s Christian Horner on George Russell’s comments
Here’s Sergio Perez on not being happy
Here’s Max Verstappen on taking it slow on Lap 1
Here’s F1 drivers and teams on red flag
Here’s FIA setting a date for penalty review
Here’s Charles Leclerc requesting privacy
Here’s Charles Leclerc on frustrations
Here’s news on Charles Leclerc watch theft
Here’s Felipe Massa on legal chances regarding 2008 title