Insisting that exceeding the budget cap was of no benefit to his team, Christian Horner describes the punishment as Draconian and claims that Red Bull has no need to apologise.

In the wake of the FIA's statement on Red Bull's breaching of the budget cap, team boss Christian Horner took part in a press conference to address a number of issues raised by the affair.

He came out all guns blazing, describing the $7m fine and restriction on aero testing as "Draconian", and while insisting that his team had derived no benefit from exceeding the breach, far from apologising for the breach claims it is Red Bull that is owed the apology.

"Ninety minutes after Max Verstappen had won the drivers' championship in Suzuka, I was informed that we were in fact in breach of the regulations to the tune of 1.8 million," he said. "Again, we were hugely surprised by that having felt that we'd countered each of the points that have been discussed.

"The FIA accepted that there were mitigating factors in particular to one specific item where, essentially we had overpaid within the cap the amount of tax," he explained as addressed one of the many areas addressed by the FIA's analysis. "We hadn't excluded £1.4m worth of tax that was an excludable item.

"So when you take that into account that £1.8m breach becomes, as the FIA clearly states in their release, down to little over £400,000. So a 0.37% breach is essentially what we're talking about."

Referring to the issue of unused parts, he said: "There was a change to the regulations in June after the submission that, had we been allowed to resubmit, would have had a benefit to us in the region of 1.2 million pounds of unused parts and the way that those unused parts are accounted and treated. That we believe has been adopted by other teams within their submissions.

Continuing with his defence of 13 costs that Red Bull omitted but which the FIA insists should have been included, Horner addressed the issue of sick pay and catering costs.

"Catering within Red Bull has always been a benefit that's been provided by the group," he said. "It's a benefit of working within the Red Bull group that free food and beverage has always been provided.

"Therefore, as something of a Red Bull policy, we viewed it as an excludable cost. Aggressive, but we felt acceptable. The FIA took a different viewpoint on that and said that food was not excludable. Fair enough. But what was included was the entire catering bill of the entire company.

So £1.4 million worth of food, drink, coffees - any of you that attended Milton Keynes during the last 12 months have contributed to our overspend," he smiled, referring to the media.

"Red Bull Powertrains have nothing to do with Red Bull Racing, its activity this year the costs are included. So there's a difference of opinion on how that was applied."

Referring to sick pay, he explained: "We have always taken a view that we wanted to support our staff, in sickness and in health, and when members of staff have been on long-term sick we have supported them as we will continue to do in the future.

"We felt that the sick pay, because the role played no function in the Grand Prix team for a period of eight months, was an excludable costs. Unfortunately, the regulations can be interpreted in two ways."

Horner also disagreed with the decision to include in the budget the salary of a team member - believed to be Dan Fallows - who was put on gardening leave prior to his move to Aston Martin.

"We had a senior member of staff on a fixed-term contract, that was offered a Hollywood-style offer from another team, and at that point, you can see that their heart and mind is not within your company.

"So they were transferred from the Formula 1 activity into our Advanced Technology activity which is currently designing the RB17 (hypercar) and America's Cup projects amongst a myriad of other projects.

"The individual then left the company from there but the time that he was spent not in the Formula 1 activity was included in the cap. So again, something that we vehemently felt was an excludable costs."

Horner is adamant that despite the disagreement with the FIA over what should, and what should not, have been included in the cap, and the fact it "probably comes in excess of three to three-and-a-half million worth of value", Red Bull opted to take the accept the penalty as opposed to facing a legal row.

"Had we dragged it out through the administration process, to go effectively to appeal, that could have taken months," he said. "And then beyond that the International Court of Appeal could have taken further months. So we could have been looking at a 12-month period to have this situation closed.

"With the amount of speculation and commenting and sniping that has been going on in the paddock, we felt it in everybody's interests - in our interests, in the FIA's interests, in Formula 1's interests - to say we close the book here and today. We accept the penalties, begrudgingly, but we accept them."

Nonetheless, he regards the punishment meted out as Draconian, especially the restriction on aerodynamic testing.

"The more draconian part is the sporting penalty," he said, "which is a 10 percent reduction on our ability to utilise our wind tunnel and aerodynamic tools.

"I've heard people reporting today that that is an insignificant amount, but let me tell you that is an enormous amount. That represents anywhere between 0.25s and 0.5s of lap time. That comes in from now, it has a direct effect on next year's car and it will be in place for a 12-month period.

"By winning the Constructors' championship we have become victims of our own success by, in addition to that ten percent, having five percent incremental disadvantage or handicap compared to second and third place. That 10 percent put into reality will have an impact on our ability to perform on track next year."

Asked if he felt his team owed its rivals, fans, indeed the sport an aspology, Horner replied: "To be honest with you I think we're probably due an apology from some of our rivals for some of the claims they have made.

"We make no apology for the way that we've performed, the way that we've acted," he continued. "We do take on the chin that there are lessons to be learned and potentially mistakes have been made in our submission, which with the benefit of hindsight with 20:20 vision everybody can be a specialist, but there was no intent.

"There was nothing dishonest and there was certainly no cheating involved, which has been alleged in certain areas. So I don't feel like we need to apologise."

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