Aston Martin fined $450,000 for breach of F1 cost cap

Aston Martin has been fined $450,000 for a procedural breach of Formula One’s cost cap last season, the governing FIA said on Friday.

Sebastian Vettel of Germany driving the (5) Aston Martin AMR22 Mercedes on track during the F1 Grand Prix of USA at Circuit of The Americas on October 23, 2022 in Austin, Texas. | Photo Credit: AFP

Aston Martin has been fined $450,000 for a procedural breach of Formula One’s cost cap last season, the governing FIA said on Friday.

Champions Red Bull was earlier fined $7 million for a ‘minor overspend’ as well as a procedural breach.

Red Bull accepted guilt in the FIA penalty notice, but the governing body noted “there is no accusation or evidence that RBR has sought at any time to act in bad faith, dishonestly or in a fraudulent manner, nor has it wilfully concealed any information from the Cost Cap Administration.”

Red Bull, though, explained it as a clerical error and misinterpretation of how to apply the costs in certain areas, among them: catering services, social security contributions, travel costs and how they handled unused parts.

The cost cap was put in place as a competition equalizer to prevent the larger, heavily-funded teams from outspending the smaller organizations struggling to keep up.

(with inputs from AP)