Red Bull to develop even bigger aero upgrade package after Spanish GP

Red Bull's upgrade at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix has helped Max Verstappen to two consecutive victories.

Red Bull are reported not to have exceeded 18 percent of their development budget in 2022 amid reports that they had almost exhausted it.

Previous rumours had suggested that the Milton Keynes side had spent up to 75 percent of their $10 million budget this year, with the overall budget for the teams sitting at $140 million this season.

The new financial restrictions were introduced along with the new technical regulations that saw the re-introduction of ground effect aerodynamics, a new fuel philosophy, and bigger tyres.

READ: ‘That can’t be cheap’: Marko warns Sainz crashes could hurt Ferrari’s 2022 championship quest

This ultimately bumped up the weight of the cars, and it has transpired that getting the weight of the cars down has been one of the key targets for the majority of the teams asides from Alfa Romeo, who are reportedly the only team to have made the initial 795kg weight limit.

Assessing the areas of improvement are part of the reason that Ferrari have waited until the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend to unleash their first batch of major upgrades, which include a new diffuser and a revised floor.

Red Bull were slightly less circumspect in their approach, and they opted to bring their first evolution of the RB18 to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The upgrade in Imola is said to have taken up 5kg off the overall weight of their challenger, and the estimated two-tenth improvement they made as a result helped Max Verstappen to victory in both Imola and Miami, despite starting third behind the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in Florida.

Due to the changes made, Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto suggested that his rivals would eventually have to “stop developing” due to the budget cap, and reports were made that the Austrian outfit had spent around 2$7 million of the perceived $36 million set aside for development.

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Dr Helmut Marko described those rumours as “nonsense,” and fresh indications would point to Red Bull having spent just over $6 million of their $36 million allowance for the season.

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They are so happy with their current situation within the spending cap, in fact, that they have already begun work on an upgrade for the British Grand Prix in Silverstone which is set to feature “major aero changes.”

Another facet of spending that it is restricted by the cap this year is shipping, and the cost of getting freight to events is rising, so team principal Christian Horner has suggested that an “allowance” be introduced “sooner rather than later” to avoid running out of funds.