"It drives efficiency" - Red Bull on F1's 'aggressive' budget cap

Red Bull's Christian Horner claims the budgetary cap put in place by the sport helps drive efficient development within teams. The Briton feels every team is close to the limit this year following the budgetary limitations set by the FIA.

Christian Horner claims the budgetary cap has helped his team streamline their processes, making them more efficient overall. Speaking in a pre-qualifying interview, he said:

“It’s very aggressive so you have to be very strategic in how you apply your funds to developments and I think rather than just running as fast as you can and getting as much performance from the car you’ve got to be much more selective in what you chose, based on its cost. So it drives efficiency.”

He further went on to add, saying:

“Now of course the added complication that we have at the moment with the cap is with what we see going on in the world and inflationary prices going… in the UK we are probably pretty close to 10% inflation at the moment and with freight, with logistics, fuel costs, that’s having a significant impact.”

The FIA introduced a budget cap of $140 million for 2022 in a bid to level the playing field between the teams. The cap is definitely designed to favor the smaller teams as the FIA hopes that bigger teams such as Mercedes and Red Bull might struggle to finish development under a stricter budget.

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Red Bull finished P2 and P4 in 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying

Max Verstappen narrowly missed out on pole position in the qualifying session ahead of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix. The Dutchman was beaten to pole by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by 0.123 seconds while teammate Sergio Perez finished in P4 behind Carlos Sainz.

Verstappen's RB18 looked the strongest throughout FP2 and FP3, with most of the F1 fraternity expecting him to take pole in Saturday's qualifying. Leclerc, however, put out a blazingly fast lap at the end of Q3, besting the Dutchman.

The Mercedes cars seemed to struggle for pace in comparison to Red Bull and Ferrari. Former Williams star George Russell could only manage to put his W13 in P9, while seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton could only find P5 on the grid. Russell was outqualified by former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, who managed an excellent P6 in his Alfa Romeo.

Catch the Ferrari versus Red Bull fight live tomorrow as F1 heads to its season opener in Bahrain.