An unfortunately timed promotional video was quickly deleted by Sergio Perez amid the Cashgate saga in Formula 1.
Red Bull, along with Aston Martin, were recently mentioned in a report suggesting that two teams had exceeded last year’s budget cap of $145 million.
The FIA were set to complete their calculations and summaries for last week, but they could not complete the audits in time, so they delayed their verdict until Monday.
This led to suspicion that they were taking a few days to negotiate settlements with the two teams, and at the start of this week, they confirmed that both teams had breached the financial regulations.
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Red Bull were initially accused of exceeding the budget by more than five percent, which would have put them in material breach of the rules, but it has since been confirmed that they were over by less than that threshold.
According to de Telegraaf in the Netherlands, the overall expenditure was at around the $147 million mark, and they remarked that a lot of the overspend may have been down to costs of catering and sick pay.
This has led to numerous jokes about gourmet meals in Milton Keynes, and playful names such as Costcappen, Chequeo Perez and Red Bull Restaurant.
On Tuesday, Perez had scheduled a video with one of Red Bull’s sponsors, Cash App, which showed the Mexican driver and a party of Red Bull mechanics at a restaurant.
Food and finance are the main talking points around the team at the moment, so those two themes combined in a video made before the saga even broke was not the greatest look.
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Perez swiftly deleted the video, but not before several people took screenshots and recordings of the advertisement.
Cash App’s relationship with Red Bull had already been called into question after the United States Grand Prix last year.
A fan started a petition to have the payment service removed as a partner to the four-time champions, but that only got 42 signatures.