Toto Wolff doesn't believe Red Bull will be too affected by their punishment for breaking Formula 1 budget cap rules.
It emerged last year that they had committed a "minor" overspend in the 2021 season – the first in which the regulations were in force. As a result, Red Bull were slapped with a £6m fine and had 10% of their wind tunnel testing time over the next year taken away by the FIA.
The fine is a relative drop in the ocean to a team with such resources, but the sporting penalty has the potential to have a major impact. Having won the title, Red Bull already had less wind tunnel time at their disposal compared to their rivals.
Team principal Christian Horner said last month that the penalty is "limiting significantly the amount of runs that we can do in our wind tunnel over each quarter". He also said it would be a challenge and a handicap to his team, though he backed his colleagues to still produce a strong car.
Naturally, Red Bull's rivals Mercedes appear to be unconvinced about how much the champions are truly being affected. Silver Arrows chief Wolff admitted it is an advantage for his team, but doesn't feel like it will make a great deal of difference.
He said at the W14 car launch last week: "I think they've done a very good job last year in having a car out there that was half a second or more quicker than everybody else.
"The lack of wind tunnel time is certainly not great for them, and 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 long-term, good for us, but we've been in that situation, obviously without a penalty, in the years before – we've won and, therefore, we had less wind tunnel time than everybody else for the last two seasons.
"It's certainly going to bite them a bit but, if they are efficient as an organisation, which they've demonstrated, it's not going to be big."
