McLaren give examples of Red Bull overspending as Max Verstappen 2021 title under threat

04.10.2022 - 11:23 / msn.com

McLaren chief Andreas Seidl believes Red Bull overspent on salaries and benefit packages after the energy drink giants were accused of breaking budget cap rules in 2021. The FIA are currently reviewing team's spending for last year and have insisted any breaches will be dealt with "according to the formal process set out in the regulations.

" Red Bull are one of two teams, alongside Aston Martin, who are rumoured to have fallen foul of the rules. And if they are guilty of the offences, their superstar driver Max Verstappen could be stripped of the F1 world title he won last year.

"We have an obligation to our people, from the FIA's side and from our side, because even for a team like us the introduction of the cost cap meant we had to put some really serious measures in place which were affecting our people," Seidl said ahead of this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix. "We had to make people redundant as well.

We had to ask our people to accept pay cuts or pay freezes, which was very serious. "At the same time there was, especially from two teams, an incredible aggressive hiring still ongoing, throwing incredible salaries on the table and offering unbelievable company benefit packages where we are all wondering how this is possible in this new world of Formula 1 and our people are obviously challenging us if we do everything right on our side.

"That's why we simply welcome clarity on this because in the end we will find out that if maybe we have missed something on our side or if there actually were breaches ongoing and we have a clear explanation why certain teams can do certain things which we were simply not in a position to offer to our people. "READ MORE: Max Verstappen lays down the law to Christian Horner and Red Bull