2022, the year which provided the constructor’s championship to Red Bull, also gave several painful tags to the team. The team suffered the allegation of having violated the cost budget regulations last year, which evolved with huge criticism. Rival teams asked for strict sanctions when FIA released reports suggesting Red Bull had breached the cap. Meanwhile, currently, people have started to defend Red Bull over what penalty it has received.

David Coulthard Believes FIA Has Given Harsh Punishment To Red Bull

David Coulthard, a former British motorsports driver, has claimed that Red Bull’s budget breach penalty is ‘harsh’. He disagreed with Mercedes and Ferrari and everyone who believed the punishment to be too minor. According to David, preventing any Formula One team from wind tunnel and CFD testing for an entire season would greatly impact the drivers’ performance.

In an interview with Channel 4, the former driver, who later turned into a journalist and F1 commentator, suggested that ‘aero is king’ in any Formula One car. Formula One is an aerodynamic formula. And a reduction in the amount of time the team can spend in the wind tunnel test is very struggling. As per David, what Red Bull received is a harsh punishment. However, he can’t say anything more because the penalty was set after an agreement between the FIA and Red Bull.

Jacques Villeneuve Asking For Changes In The Cost Cap Penalty

Not only one man but many more has emerged to stand in support of the constructor’s champion team. After DC, Jacques Villeneuve has also stated in favor of Red Bull. He even considered the team not to have committed cheating and recommended FIA make some changes in the cost cap penalty.

The former Formula One champion Villenuel agreed to Horner’s assessment when he said that overspending is not cheating. Red Bull did not intentionally breach the budget by such a minor amount as to have advantages, though the team accepted that it had broken the sports amount submission rules. The Canadian F1 driver stated to Formule1.nl, “The 10% less time in the wind tunnel does hurt, it will slow them down. But it does not give the others a lap time, part of the fine would help. Just divide that among the teams.”

By saying that, Villeneuve meant that FIA had given a $7 million punishment to Red Bull, but it is not fair because ‘it would not damage the sport’ at all. According to Jacques Villeneuve, the fine that Red Bull submitted to FIA should be distributed among all the other teams because FIA has no right to have such an amount. He believes there is no use of such punishments when the other teams don’t get a cent from it.

Red Bull Got A Draconian Punishment From FIA, According To Christian Horner

As fans already know that Christian Horner was denying when FIA found the team guilty of breaching the cost cap of $145 million by $2.2 million. Later, in the final reports, it was found that the actual breaching amount was just $0.5 million. This happened because Red Bull missed submitting the tax credits to FIA, which was not included in the amount reports. As a result, it was a minor breach that deserved a little punishment. However, the penalty was ‘draconian,’ according to Christian Horner.

Mercedes and Ferrari reckoned that the breaching helped Max Verstappen to secure his maiden title. Therefore, the title should be executed as a penalty. On the other hand, MacLaren’s principal Zak Brown sent a letter to FIA’s president claiming Red Bull’s violation as “cheating”. Brown also recommended FIA several significant punishments for the team. However, several personalities have recently favored Red Bull and stood against the FIA cost cap penalty.

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