Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff: It’s good to see a penalty for Red Bull rule breaking

Toto Wolff said it was ‘good to see there is a penalty’ for Red Bull after they exceeded the Formula 1 spending cap and said they have suffered ‘reputational damage’.

The Austrian team have been fined $7 million (£6m) and given a further penalty of a 10% reduction in time they can spend in the wind tunnel as a result of going over limits agreed for the previous season.

While Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner has described the punishment as ‘draconian’ and suggested his team are owed an apology by their rivals, his Mercedes peer welcomed the decision from the FIA to hand down a punishment.

Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: “What is most important for me is that there is robust governance. They didn’t budge an eyelid, they just followed the process. I think they were absolutely good in assessing, I know how rigorous they were with us all throughout the year. That was a difficult process.

“I mean, when I’m seeing 13 positions that were wrong, that wasn’t the case with us. It is good to see there is a penalty, whether we deem it too low or too high.

“It’s a lot of positions, so much more precise than normal book-keeping, because you need to track the time of people. You need to check in and check out like a lawyer. It’s a relative game, and it’s a squad of marginal gains, whether it is 200,000 or two million, it all costs performance.

“We all had to cover sick pay and gardening leave, one team was in breach.”

Wolff said he would not be tempted to break the rules not because of the punishment he has seen handed out, but because he would not want the PR damage.

“Beyond the sporting penalty, it’s also reputational damage,” he continued. “In a world of transparency, and good governance, that’s just not on anymore.“

McLaren’s chief executive officer Zak Brown added: “We appreciate the cost cap investigation is a complex process which the FIA have conducted in a thorough and transparent manner.

“I’m pleased the truth is out there now and the result is as we expected – there was a breach of the cost cap by one team, with the other nine operating in line with the rules. It is therefore only right that punitive action is taken.

“If the FIA is to be most effective and its punishments serve as a lesson to others when rules are broken in this way, the sanctions have to be much stronger in the future.

‘We hope that the lessons learned through this process will now mean all teams have a clear understanding of the rules in order to avoid any future breaches. While we are pleased to see them act, we would hope the FIA take stronger action in future against those that wilfully break the rules.”