Toto Wolff expects that the pain of the penalty around the budget cap will certainly have an effect on Red Bull Racing, but also thinks that the team is efficient enough to keep the damage small. The Mercedes team boss himself knows all too well what it’s like to have to deal with less time in the wind tunnel, although he emphasizes that this had nothing to do with a penalty, but simply with performance.
Wolff thinks that Red Bull Racing will certainly feel the pain of the reduction in wind tunnel time, he says in conversation with RaceFans. “They did a really good job last year putting a car on track that is half a second or more faster than everyone else. I think the lack of wind tunnel time is definitely not great for them, it’s an advantage for us this season. But if you have an efficient machine, you can certainly compensate for that, or large parts of it. So in the long run it’s good for us.’
The Austrian himself knows all too well what it is like to have to deal with less time in the wind tunnel, after he also had less time for testing with Mercedes after the championships. “We have been in that situation in the years before, of course without penalty,” emphasizes the Mercedes team boss. “We won and that’s why we had less wind tunnel time than everyone else in the past two seasons,” said Wolff, who therefore also saw the other side of the coin.
Pain will not be too bad for Red Bull
So it is double for Red Bull, after the team won the constructors’ world championship and only got 70% in the wind tunnel because of that performance, after which they were only left with 63% after getting the penalty for exceeding the budget cap . Although it will certainly be felt according to Wolff, he thinks that the Austrians will be able to handle the punishment well. “It will certainly hurt them a little bit, but if they are efficient as an organization, which they have shown, it won’t be much.”
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