Red Bull’s punishment for breaking Formula 1’s budget cap will be revealed on Friday.
The team have called a news conference at 12:30 p.m. at the Mexican Grand Prix to discuss their penalty.
It is understood that the team have come to an “accepted breach agreement” with F1’s governing body the FIA.
“We feel we are not wrong and things are taken into the budget cap that are very unexpected, but we have to deal with it,” driver Max Verstappen said.
The penalty has not been revealed but speculation within F1 suggests that it could be a multi-million dollar fine and a reduction in permitted aerodynamic research and development.
The FIA announced on October 11 that Red Bull had committed a ‘minor breach’ of the $145m cap in 2021, the year Verstappen won his first world title after a close fight with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
A ‘minor’ breach is anything under 5% of the cap, or $7.25m in 2021.
A penalty for Aston Martin for committing a procedural breach will also be revealed – this is where a team has stayed within spending limits but has committed some kind of administrative error.
Verstappen added that he was able to brush off any criticism he may receive for winning the title in a year in which his team may have benefited from over-spending in the development of their car.
“From my side I can,” he said. “Probably they [the critics] cannot and will never be able to. That’s a problem for them to deal with.”
He said he was able to do the same after he won the 2021 championship following race director Michael Masi’s failure to apply the rules correctly during a late safety-car period at the final race of the season.
He said people who criticised him and Red Bull in such circumstances were “sore anyway, so it doesn’t matter what you say or what you do”.
Speaking to BBC Sport in a small group interview at last weekend’s US Grand Prix, Hamilton was asked whether he would be satisfied if the 2021 title was taken off Verstappen, as is theoretically possible, but considered extremely unlikely.
The seven-time champion said: “No, because the damage is done. I have my feeling inside of what we did as a team and how we achieved and what we really truly achieved and I can keep that to myself within me.
“We gave it our all and we did it the right way and I am proud of that.” (BBC)
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