Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes the fact that the Formula 1 prize money the teams receive is more than the cost cap doesn’t make sense.
Formula 1 teams receive a percentage of the profits the sport makes from owners Liberty Media, the amount being based on where the team finishes in the Constructors’ Championship.
But with the sport now having a $140-Million budget cap, $5-Million less than it was in 2021, the money teams receive from Liberty will cover a major part their budgets, if not all of them.
Christian Horner was speaking in the aftermath of Red Bull being found guilty of breaching the 2021 cost cap by $2.2-Million for which the 2022 Champions were fined $7-Million and received a 10% cut in wind tunnel time.
Despite it being a hefty fine, Horner is not concerned about his team’s bottom line as Red Bull – as is the case with F1 – has been doing very well financially in light of the sport’s current boom.
Red Bull won’t suffer from FIA fine
“In terms of the material effect on Red Bull Racing, this year has been a strong year for us,” Horner revealed over the weekend of the 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix.
“Indeed, the amount of money we will receive from Liberty this year will exceed the cap itself, so Formula 1 is in rude health, sponsorship income is strong, and the commercial revenue.”
But the fact that the top teams will receive an amount of prize money exceeding what they are allowed to spend makes Horner adamant the cost cap needs to be revisited.
“It’s why the cost cap does need looking at because you have a prize fund exceeding the cap for the first three or four teams,” he said.
“Even the teams at the back of the grid are probably going to have 70 to 80 percent of their costs covered by the prize fund,” the Briton revealed.
As to what the FIA should do with the $7-Million they banked from Red Bull, Horner had a few ideas to offer; he said: “It’s an enormous amount of money and obviously it’s down to the FIA what it chooses to do with that money. We just hope it gets put to good use.
“Obviously, we see championships that are struggling at the moment and hopefully it can do some good,” Horner suggested in light of recent news of the W Series financial troubles.