Red Bull chief ‘angry’ at rivals Mercedes and Ferrari on FIA penalty

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Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache admits he gets “angry” every time one of their F1 rivals suggests the FIA penalty for breaching last year’s budget cap wasn’t severe enough. Toto Wolff and Mattia Binotto were both vocal about Red Bull’s breach, calling for heavy punishment from the sport’s governing body.

It was decided that Red Bull would have to pay a £5.7million fine as well as taking a 10 per cent hit in their wind tunnel time. Christian Horner said that the reduction will severely hamper their chances to develop next year’s car to its full capabilities.

But the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari have suggested that the FIA’s punishment didn’t go enough. And Wache admits that he’s been annoyed at the constant rhetoric from rival teams regarding Red Bull’s punishment.

“It’s our main tool in the development of our F1 car during the season,” he told RacingNews365. “It makes me angry when I see people saying that maybe the penalty isn’t severe.

“When you look at the rules and how they’re set up, We already have a handicap because of the balance of performance. And that already hurts, let alone if there is another penalty on top.

“The FIA ​​introduced that system and the teams agreed to it. If those measures had no effect, the motorsport association would of course never have introduced it. There is a difference of 5 per cent between two different positions in the ranking in terms of time that a team is allowed to use in the wind tunnel and for simulations.

“Five per cent? That is already a severe penalty. We will receive another five per cent less on top of that. So then we have you can almost count it for two positions less development time that we get. The difference compared to the other teams is huge for us.”

Red Bull are still confident that they’ll be challenging at the front of the grid once again in 2023 having dominated this past season. But Wache used Lionel Messi in an analogy to best describe how big of an impact the wind tunnel penalty will have on Red Bull.

“It’s like a football team,” he added. “If you play with ten people and even if you have Messi in your team, it is very difficult to still attract the game to you, for example.”

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