(Motorsport) Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has praised Red Bull Racing’s dominance, describing the job they have done as “very good” but insists that the budget cap penalty they have received last October was “very low”. Red Bull were fined $7m (£6.07m) and were given a 10% reduction in aerodynamic research for one year after breaching the budget cap for the 2021 season by £1.86 million. The team have dominated the 2022 season so far, winning all three races while their other car came second.
In a news conference on Thursday, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said “I am still convinced 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, [and] you get a penalty of one tenth of this, 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.”
In contrast, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the penalty as “very harsh” and “pretty draconian”. He said “It was vital for us to be able to cope with that penalty to have a solid starting point. It was so critical for us to come out of the blocks competitively. The wind tunnel reduction has applied since last October so we couldn’t afford to miss the target because you’d never be able to engineer your way out of it with that handicap.”
Vasseur has also revealed that Ferrari will appeal against Carlos Sainz’s five second penalty at the end of the Australian Grand Prix. The Spaniard was punished for an incident involving Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, which forced Sainz to drop from fourth to 12th and out of the points. Ferrari have launched a “petition for a right to review” to present new evidence that was not considered at the time.
Vasseur pointed at the fact that there was inconsistency in handling three different incidents in the same corner at the final restart and no further action was taken against Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly who collided. Williams driver Logan Sergeant also collided with Alpha Tauri’s Nyck de Vries in a similar fashion but it was not investigated at all. Vasseur added that it “would have made sense” to investigate the incident after the race before applying a penalty “because the race was over and it was not affecting the podium”.
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