OPINION
“Decisions should be made by F1 and the FIA. The teams shouldn’t have a say. They have too much power”
JOHNNY HERBERT
JONATHAN BUSHELL
So we’re facing a season of Red Bull domination. That’s the takeaway from the first three Formula 1 grands prix. At a time when entertainment and ‘the show’ are in particular focus, should the team be pegged back? And has it been punished enough for the budget cap overspend it was found guilty of? Big questions. Let’s take the second one first.
There was a chance to peg back Red Bull months ago when the team was found to be in breach of the budget cap. No, I don’t think the punishment was harsh enough. As far as I’m aware, CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is probably more important than wind tunnel time. The car is designed via CFD, then checked in the wind tunnel – so the CFD is the real deal. That means a wind tunnel penalty only has so much effect because the CFD is so damn powerful, and there was no penalty given on that front. If you are going to penalise, you have to do so on the basis of all the tools the teams use. So did Red Bull get away with it? The proof is in the pudding: yes, it did. It said it was going to lose out – but where exactly has Red Bull lost out? Perhaps its dominance isn’t as great as it expected!