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Christian Horner says Red Bull’s “relevant costs are within the cap” and adds the team had “zero benefit from a development perspective or an operational perspective”.
At the United States Grand Prix Saturday press conference, Christian Horner was asked if Red Bull benefited from their 2021 cost cap breach as an extra $1.8 million “could have gone into car development”.
Horner completely denied this, and said their “relevant costs are within the cap”.
“No. Look, absolutely not,” the Briton said.
“I mean, what you got to look at is what are the relevant costs? And what are the relevant costs within the cap and what’s outside of the cap? And that’s where the interpretation comes from.
“And our view is that our relevant costs are within the cap. Now, obviously, we are in discussion with the FIA about what those costs are, and what are mitigating potential circumstances, you know, etcetera.
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“So, we had zero benefit from a development perspective or an operational perspective, either for 2021 or for 2022 from the way that we operated it within the cap. Our submission was significantly below the cap.
“We expected certain things to be potentially challenged or clarified, as is the process in a brand new set of regulations, but based on external, professional accounting third parties, the interpretation of those rules, of a 52-page document to police this, were very clear from our side.
“So, we absolutely and categorically don’t feel that we’ve had any advantage either in 2021, or 2022, or ’23 or ’24 or some team’s even talked about ’26, is totally fictitious,” Horner concluded.
It remains unclear what Horner means when he is talking about “relevant costs”, because wherever the overspend happened, Red Bull had that much extra funds to put into whatever area they wanted.
