Dietrich Mateschitz: Red Bull punishment for breaking F1 rules delayed after co-owner death

Red Bull say their talks with Formula 1’s governing body over breaching the budget cap are on hold following the death of co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

It has offered Red Bull an “accepted breach agreement”.

However, team principal Christian Horner still insists that the team were were “significantly below the cap”.

A statement from Red Bull said the “next steps are on hold until further notice”.

“The deadline for agreement has been extended,” the team said, “and we expect talks to pick back up in the middle of the week.”

Mateschitz, the man behind the Red Bull energy drinks empire, died on Saturday and his loss was announced in the run-up to qualifying at the United States Grand Prix.

Details of the breach agreement offered to Red Bull have not been made public. There is speculation within F1 that it could include a substantial fine, a reduction of the team’s budget cap limit next year and a cut in permitted research and development.

Horner said in a news conference before Mateschitz’s death on Saturday that “what is in contention with the FIA is a couple of hundred thousand dollars”.

A number of senior F1 figures, who asked not to be named, told BBC Sport they felt Horner had come closer than ever before in the news conference to admitting that Red Bull had broken the cap.

Rivals have also privately questioned Horner’s claims, asking how a team that had previously said it would struggle to meet the cap could come in significantly below it.

Horner implied that the issue that had tripped up Red Bull was an interpretation of what costs should be considered within the spending limit and what should be excluded.

The F1 financial regulations list a series of categories that do not count for the cap, including driver salaries, pay for the top three earners at a team and all marketing expenses.

Horner claimed that the rules on the inventory – or unused parts – were clarified in the middle of this year and that it “had a seven-digit effect on our submission”.

Other teams have said that the clarification had no effect on them. And Mercedes said they had no record of such a change.

McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown said: “We asked lots of questions, we were right near the limit. One of the reasons why (is) in this year we’ve all dealt with the inflation issue. But you adapt your response.

“I’ve been managing budgets my entire life in business so it’s nothing that’s foreign to me.”

Horner said: “What you got to look at is: what are the relevant costs within the cap and what’s outside of the cap? That’s where the interpretation comes from and our view is that our relevant costs are within the cap.

“We are in discussion with the FIA about what those costs are, and what are mitigating potential circumstances, etc.

“We had zero benefit from a development perspective or an operational perspective, either for 2021 or for 2022, from the way that we operated within the cap.

“Our submission was significantly below the cap. We expected certain things to be potentially challenged or clarified, as is the process in a brand new set of regulations. But based on external, professional accounting third parties, the interpretation of those rules – of a 52-page document to police this – were very clear from our side.”