Red Bull technical advisor Helmut Marko believes at least six teams are over the budget cap in the 2022 season and has pointed to the increase in inflation as a big contributor to this.
Some teams had started a campaign earlier in the season to allow for a bigger budget than the $140 million currently in place and FIA had signed off on this following some deliberation.
Nine out of the 10 teams agreed to a 3.1% increase, which is roughly $4.3 million.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner was vocal in campaigning for this in the first place as he pointed towards the fact that teams may be forced to even miss races altogether with an eye on staying within the limit.
Unprecedented increase in inflation was kicked off after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in a knock-on effect in terms of logistics and freight costs as well as increasing energy costs.
Marko believes six teams over the budget in 2022
Even though the budget was marginally increased as a result, Marko believes there will be even more drama as far as the budget cap is concerned next year than there has been with regard to his own team this term.
“I think the current status is that six teams are over it,” Marko said.
“Inflation is something that was not calculable to that extent, especially when it comes to energy costs.”
Red Bull was forced to pay a large monetary fine as a result of its breach and a sporting penalty which will see them given less wind tunnel time for development.
Marko believes that Red Bull never intended to go over the budget, but the vague rules resulted in some of their calculations going wrong.
“It was the first year of the budget cap. The rules were vague,” he said.
“[The FIA] reacted late with clarifications. We had Ernst & Young (auditors) check everything. You have to rely on something. We thought we had a safety net of three million. In the end, there was only $400,000 left.”