Red Bull boss Christian Horner fears F1 title fight ending in court due to cost cap and rising inflation

Christian Horner has reiterated that teams will not be able to stay below current cost cap due to rising inflation; “We don’t want a championship decided in law courts,” the Red Bull team principal exclusively told Sky Sports F1 at the Canadian GP

Red Bull boss Christian Horner fears F1’s title fight could end up in court if the FIA does not increase the sport’s yearly cost cap, which he says has also put hundreds of jobs at risk amid rising global inflation.

All F1 teams have a cost cap of $140m (£119m) for 2022 but a dramatic rise in inflation has led to many teams – frontrunners Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes most publicly – claiming it will be impossible to abide by the rules.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 at the Canadian GP, Horner reiterated his concerns and called on F1’s governing body to act now.

“The way you design your car is within your control,” said Horner. “That is something that you, together with your group of designers, you create. You’re in control of your own destiny.

“What we’re seeing in the world at the moment, we’re not in control of the inflationary costs that are affecting households around the world. In the UK, we’re seeing predicted inflation at 11 per cent.

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“That’s a direct effect on staff, on raw materials, on electricity, on commodities, on supplied parts. I think it genuinely is a force majeure situation that the FIA need to deal with.”

The FIA have yet to give any indication of raising the cap, and several teams have said they are still on course to stay under the $140m limit. But Horner said “there’s probably about 50 per cent of the teams who are going to breach the cap at the end of the year if it continues the way things are. Probably even more.”

That could lead to penalties, and Horner, whose Red Bull team lead both championships, added: “We don’t want a championship decided in law courts, or in Paris in front of the FIA.

“We’ve got six months of the year to address this, we need to act now.”

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Horner also highlighted the risk of jobs, and the cost cap being abandoned altogether.

“I think the top teams would have to get rid of circa two, three hundred people each, to get anywhere near addressing it,” he said. “Is that right?

“The problem is if the cost cap fails badly, it’ll be gone forever.

“We need to find a solution to this issue. Nobody could have predicted this. We lowered the cost cap by $35m during the pandemic, and nobody could have predicted the issues that we’ve got.”

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