Ferrari are "not happy" with the penalty handed down to Red Bull for their cost cap violation from last year.
The FIA revealed on Friday that Red Bull overspent by £1.86m during the 2021 season, but made it clear that figure came down to £432k after applying a tax credit. As a result, the team was hit with a £6m fine and will have 10% less aerodynamic testing time over the next 12 months.
In a press conference on Friday, Christian Horner made it clear he expects that sporting penalty to have a significant impact on his team. "I think the punishment the FIA has come up with is actually a strong deterrent. I think, for a 0.37% overspend, to get charged $7m and lose 10% of your wind tunnel time is massive," he told reporters.
Horner also estimated that the loss of aero testing time could be worth up to half a second per lap for Red Bull going forward. But Ferrari's racing director Laurent Mekies is not sure that figure adds up.
"The penalty, we are not happy with it, for two important reasons," he told Sky Sports Italy . "The first is that we at Ferrari do not understand how the 10% reduction of the ATA [aerodynamic research allowance] can correspond to the same amount of lap time that we mentioned earlier.
"Furthermore, there is another problem in that, since there is no budget cap reduction in the penalty, the basic effect is to push the competitor to spend the money elsewhere.
"It has total freedom to use the money it can no longer spend on use of the wind tunnel and CFD due to the 10% reduction, on reducing the weight of the car or who knows what else. Our concern is that the combination of these two factors means the real effect of the penalty is very limited."
Horner had pre-empted that sort of response from rivals in that press conference. "I'm sure for them it won't be enough – if you burned our wind tunnel down it wouldn't be enough," he told reporters.
But Mercedes chief Toto Wolff appeared to be satisfied as he gave his reaction on Friday. "We've closed the '21 number, so let's see what [Red Bull] do with the '22 submission," said the Austrian. "I think they will have every interest to get it right this time, so hopefully it's enough of a deterrent so it doesn't happen again with any team."
