The FIA identified 13 areas where Red Bull adjusted or excluded costs in its budget cap submission, one of which was catering. Horner explains how a difference of opinion meant £1.4m worth of food & drinks ended up contributing to its overspend.
The FIA announced on Friday in Mexico that it had struck an Accepted Breach Agreement with Red Bull after finding the team had exceeded the $145 million budget cap last year.Red Bull fiercely denied throughout the saga that it had spent beyond the budget cap, but said on Friday thatThe FIA’s ruling detailed a number of areas where Red Bull had wrongly excluded costs, which led to an overspend of £1.8m.
He went on to explain that Red Bull thought catering costs were excluded from the budget cap as it is a company-wide benefit and not something solely related to the F1 team. “The FIA took a different viewpoint on that, and said that food was not excludable. Fair enough. But what was included was the entire catering bill of our entire company, so £1.4m worth of food, drink, coffees.until this year, and their costs are included. So a difference of opinion on how that was applied.”Motorsport Images
Sick pay was another area that Horner said the team had disagreed with the FIA’s interpretation, with Red Bull excluding payments made to staff whose illness meant they did not work with the race team. “Had the person died, which thankfully they didn’t, the cost would have been excludable. Thankfully they didn’t die, but therefore the cost was included for that person.”