Red Bull boss Christian Horner now praises F1 budget cap after having broken it: "It's helped to reduce costs and drive efficiency"

Despite Red Bull being penalized for breaching the cost cap in the 2021 F1 season, their team principal, Christian Horner, praised the tight budget forced by the FIA. The cost cap was essentially applied to the sport to bring the F1 grid closer and promote closer and more thrilling racing.

Speaking to RacingNews365, Horner explained how the cost cap helped increase efficiency within the team. He explained how several components worth millions were left unused in previous years, which won't recur now since all the stock will be carefully bought and used by teams. He said:

"It's helped to reduce costs, for sure, and it's had a direct hit on the bottom line with the amount of stock, the number of components that you make, and the amount that you can actually spend is obviously heavily restricted now compared to previous years. It's just driven efficiency throughout the business. In years gone by, there would be millions of pounds' worth of unused stock left at the end of the year, that would effectively have to be written off."

He further added:

"Now, you can't afford to do that, you can't afford to carry that, you have to be absolutely efficient and frugal with how you apply your budget, particularly in development and manufacturing."

After the FIA investigated Red Bull's expenditures in the 2021 F1 season, the team was penalized and had to pay a $7 million fine. Along with that, their wind tunnel time was also reduced. Since Red Bull are the reigning world champions, they already have less wind tunnel time compared to their competitors. Hence, the 2023 F1 season could be quite tough for the team.

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Red Bull team principal suggests a change in F1's Sprint race weekend

Christian Horner recently spoke about how the F1 Sprint race weekends could improve with two qualifying sessions for each race. As of now, a single qualifying session determines the grid for the sprint race, and the results of the sprint race determine the grid for the main race. However, the Red Bull team principal suggested that two qualifying sessions for the sprint and main race may be held. Horner said:

"There's many positive things about Sprint races, but I think we can still improve the concept. The concept of having an independent qualifying for Sprint and then another qualifying for the Grand Prix has absolute merit in it, because you don't lose your entire weekend if the Sprint race doesn't go well for you, and it'll take away the need to be conservative."

Though the Red Bull team boss likes sprint races, he also thinks that if a team is unable to perform in a sprint race, a single qualifying session will feel completely useless. Hence, he proposed two qualifying sessions for each race.