Symonds argues for better budget cap system: 'But it can't be done yet'

For breaching the 2021 budget cap, Red Bull received a two-part punishment from the FIA: a fine of seven million dollars and 10 per cent less testing time in the wind tunnel for 2023. Opinions differed on the penalty: Christian Horner called it draconian, Toto Wolff thought it was too lenient, and Max Verstappen was convinced it would only give the team extra motivation.

Symonds thinks Red Bull will definitely feel the effects of the reduced testing time. However, he did stress that it is difficult to determine exactly how detrimental it will be for the team, as this is only the second season of driving with new technical regulations. "It would be quite hard to calculate because when you have a new set of regulations, then the rate of development is very high," Symonds explains. "So every 100 wind tunnel runs you do, you expect a couple of points of downforce normally and probably more than that in the regulations. So yeah, they will feel it definitely."

A different system would be better

As for what caused the offence, Symonds is clear: Red Bull have only themselves to blame for this. "Red Bull got a few things wrong, but every team was given the opportunity to do a dry run. Red Bull chose not to, and that’s probably why they made mistakes. I do agree that it would be really nice if we absolutely knew what the budget numbers looked like in real-time. Maybe we can get to that, but it’s not quite there yet."