Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto believes that the teams’ head start will stand them in good stead to win the Formula 1 championships and that Red Bull will soon run out of money to continue developing Max Verstappen’s challenge for the 2022 title. Red Bull in return denies this and points the finger at Carlos Sainz’s crashes could be using up the valuable remaining budget for Ferrari; a figure Haas boss Gunther Steiner reveals.

After the first major Red Bull update at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Imola, it appears the Red Bull RB18 is the fastest car of the F1 field, but it seems Ferrari will follow suit for the first time in Barcelona with a big update planned. 

“In the last two races, Red Bull has gained about two tenths,” Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto is quoted as saying in Italian media: “To keep up with that, we also have to bring updates,

“There is a budget limit. At some point, Red Bull has to stop developing. In the next few races, it’s our turn to bring in new parts.” 

Binotto remains bullish about Ferrari’s prospects this F1 season and claims that Red Bull must’ve used a significant portion of their budget in order to be quickest over a race weekend by spending far more than Ferrari. 

“I would estimate that they have spent significantly more money than us so far. But that doesn’t go on permanently. We don’t have enough money to bring something new to every Grand Prix. And it’s not about our capacity, it’s about the budget limit. We bring updates when we think the time is right,” says Binotto.

“Barcelona will be an important package for us, I hope the innovations we bring will be a good push to get us back to the level of Red Bull.”

Red Bull’s Helmut Marko denies such spending claims:

“I don’t think so,” Marko tells Motorsport-Total.com: “It’s true that the increased logistics costs are a problem. But that doesn’t just affect us, it also affects Ferrari and all the other teams.”

The fact that Red Bull has already used up 75 percent of its development budget is “nonsense”,

For Red Bull, motorsport consultant Helmut Marko doesn’t give much away but admits weight loss has been a big priority for the team: “We plan our updates in such a way that we always lose weight with each update, because unfortunately we still haven’t reached the minimum weight. And we won’t quite reach it with the next update either,”

In typical Marko fashion, the Austrian turns the speculation about Red Bull running out of money over to Ferrari’s weak link in Carlo Sainz Jr’s poor finishing record this season.

“I don’t think we are in a significantly different position than Ferrari in this respect. Especially as I wonder what effect it has on them that Carlos Sainz has already crashed the car several times. It can’t be cheap.”

As to how much this season’s budget cap is affecting the teams, Haas F1’s team boss Gunther Steiner reveals all to Motorsport.com in Italy. Steiner estimates that for top racing team in Formula 1, the budget cap dictates about ten million dollars left over, after deducting all other costs, which can actually be invested in updates. Not a lot of cash!