McLaren won’t join Red Bull in call for cost cap changes

Even though McLaren lost Lando Norris from the Hungarian GP as a result of another driver’s mistake, McLaren won’t join Red Bull in calling for a rethink of the cost cap.

Christian Horner was furious as, for the second race in a row, his Red Bull cars were damaged by Mercedes drivers.

Lewis Hamilton caused $1.8m worth of damage to Max Verstappen’s RB16B at the British Grand Prix while Valtteri Bottas added to the repair bill in Hungary when he took out Sergio Perez and caused extensive damage to Verstappen’s car.

Red Bull also lost two engines as a result of the two crashes.

Horner feels the FIA need to look into this as Red Bull are stuck footing the bill for crashes that weren’t their doing, and having to do so in the first season under a cost cap.

Asked if his Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff had apologised after Hungary, Horner told Sky F1: “Is he going to pay the bill? It’s racing.

“Toto wasn’t driving the car, his driver was driving the car. I’m sure he didn’t tell them ‘crash into Red Bull’. I’m sure he wasn’t that sorry to see the result, but I’m sure he didn’t tell Valtteri to do that.

“But the consequence for us is brutal and in a cost-cap environment that needs looking at by the FIA.”

Seidl, though, disagrees.

Stand out from the crowd with McLaren merchandise via the official Formula 1 store

😳#HungarianGP 🇭🇺 [Lap 3/70] 🚩 pic.twitter.com/UIQ70aGfen

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) August 1, 2021

Although McLaren also had two cars damaged on Sunday through no fault of their own, Daniel Ricciardo was hit by Lance Stroll, he says it is “part of the game”.

“No, not at all,” he via GPFans when asked if the rules of the cost cap should be re-evaluated for crashes.

“And I definitely will not go in the direction Christian is going, mentioning in every second sentence the cost cap and how much you get hurt by it by every accident on the track.

“In the end, that is part of the game we are in. It is down to us to manage the budget in the right way.”

Running a new bargeboard at the Hungaroring, Seidl says McLaren will be pressed for time to have sufficient new parts built in time for the Belgian Grand Prix.

“It will be a challenge to make sure we now have again enough parts of the new specification available for Spa,” he said.

“But on the other hand, we have a great team back home on production and on the engineering side so I am confident we can recover from what happened.”

Sunday’s crash also cost McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship as, failing to score a single point, Ferrari were able to tie them for points.