Amid Red Bull’s call to rethink Formula 1’s cost cap after the huge crash bills in the last two races, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto has come up with a radical idea.
With Ferrari’s own Charles Leclerc knocked out by Lance Stroll on the first corner of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Binotto said the situation needed to be reviewed.
And while he doesn’t think an additional cap on repairs is the way to go, he believes teams of drivers found wholly at fault in accidents could be forced to pay for the damage they did to the competition.
“I think it’s worth discussing with the other FIA and F1 team principals in the near future,” said Binotto.
“Of course, if you are not guilty, such damage in the budget cap is now an even greater consequence.
“Shall we add exceptions? I am not sure if this is the solution. I think it can be very difficult to be monitored.
“But I think what we can consider is that if one driver fails, the driver’s team should at least pay the other teams the damage and repairs. That will make the drivers more accountable.”
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Binotto’s comments are a consequence of new headaches for the Red Bull team as they face expensive crash repairs for the second straight race.
Just a fortnight after the $ 1.8 million bill that Red Bull saw as a result of Max Verstappen’s high-speed Grand Prix crash in Great Britain with Lewis Hamilton, it suffered another bruise encounter on the Hungaroring .
A runaway Valtteri Bottas triggered a first mass collision in Hungary, which caused great damage to the Red Bull duo Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
While Verstappen continued to drive and eventually finished in the points, Perez came to a standstill shortly afterwards and the team feared that his engine would be written off.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner thinks it’s unfair that his team is now facing another major budget headache in order to pay for the damage in a campaign in which it is already at the limit of the budget ceiling of 145 million US dollars .
He wants the FIA to investigate the matter and try to find a way so that teams are not financially penalized if accidents are not their fault.
“It’s brutally below the cost ceiling,” said Horner. “I think it reaffirms that if you have an incident that is not your fault, we pay a significant price, and that is something that is not in the budget.
“It’s something I think the FIA needs to look into more closely.”
When asked where the money had to come from to pay for the recent accidents as Red Bull had to layoffs last winter to make sure the budget cap was met, Horner said sacrifices would have to be made.
“Of course you have to look at what’s in the cap,” he said. “It’s the spare parts and also the engines that are particularly worrying. I think we have to rethink this with the FIA because it can ultimately affect all teams, not just Red Bull.”
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