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Christian Horner jokes about the fine Red Bull received for breaching the 2021 budget cap and says: “It’s good to see that our funding into the FIA is being spent very effectively.”
Back in October of last year, the FIA revealed that Red Bull has breached the 2021 budget cap. For this the team received a $7million fine and a 10% reduction in aero testing time.
Many F1 teams expressed their dissatisfaction with what they perceived to be a light penalty, however Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called it “draconian” and said it will really hurt his team.
Now, at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix Friday Press Conference, when Horner was asked how the penalty was affecting Red Bull so far, he decided to make a joke about the fine.
“Well, it’s good to see the fine being applied so well,” Horner said.
“We’ve got a new FIA couch and Tom’s got a new suit. It’s great to see the funding into the FIA being spent very effectively.”
After this he gave a more serious answer.
“Look, I mean, for us, you know, efficiency is a key word, and particularly with the handicap of losing 10 per cent of your wind tunnel time.
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“So, again, that’s where the team have done an incredible job to turn up in a competitive manner. But of course, that handicap is for a 12-month period.
“So, you know, we have another eight, nine months still to go with it. And it means that we’re going to have to be very selective and extremely efficient in how we develop this car.
“And of course, next year’s car,” the Briton concluded.
This is not the first time a person from Red Bull had made fun of the FIA’s fines. Back in 2021, after receiving a €50,000 fine for touching Lewis Hamilton’s rear wing in parc ferme, Max Verstappen decided to joke about how insignificant the fine was for him.
“It’s quite a big fine, so I hope they have a nice dinner and a lot of wine,” he said at the time.
“I hope good, expensive wine, that would be nice. They can invite me for dinner as well, I will pay for that dinner too,” Verstapen concluded.
