Red Bull have accused their rivals of waging a “concerted campaign for a draconian penalty” for them breaking Formula 1’s budget cap.
Team principal Christian Horner said that “what is in contention is a couple of hundred thousand dollars” in the team’s financial submissions for 2021.
Governing body the FIA has offered Red Bull a so-called breach agreement detailing a suggested penalty.
Horner said Red Bull were in talks over this and “wanted closure on 2021”.
Details of the FIA’s offer have not been made public.
Horner’s remarks come in the wake of a letter McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown wrote last week, and which was first reported by BBC Sport, that said Red Bull breaching the $145m (£114m) cap in 2021 “constitutes cheating”.
Horner is also angry about interviews given by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and his opposite number at Ferrari, Mattia Binotto, at the Singapore Grand Prix last month, when Red Bull’s breach first became public knowledge.
Red Bull have been found guilty of both a ‘minor’ and a ‘procedural’ breach of the financial regulations. A ‘minor’ breach can be any amount up to 5% of the cap, or $7.25m in 2021.
Horner said the 5% window and number of possible punishments listed in the regulations “have contributed to a concerted campaign for there to be a draconian penalty on Red Bull for what at the end of the day we are taking what is probably in contention with the FIA is a couple of hundred thousand dollars.”
He added: “What has been tremendously disappointing is the leakage that happened. Suddenly we are tried and subjected to three weeks of effective abuse. And then to be seeing a letter accusing us of cheating and being fraudulent, it is just not right, and this has to stop.”
Horner said that that he was “appalled at the behaviour of some of our competitors”, adding that children of Red Bull employees had been bullied in school playgrounds.
“For a fellow competitor to be accusing you of cheating, to accuse you of fraudulent activity, is absolutely shocking,” he said. “Without any of the facts or details to be making that kind of accusation.
“We have been on trial because of public accusations since Singapore. The rhetoric of cheats, that we’ve had this enormous benefit, numbers have been put out in then media that are miles out of reality. The damage that does to the brand, to pour partners, to our drivers to our workforce.”
Horner said Red Bull hoped to resolve the talks with the FIA over the breach before the end of the US Grand Prix weekend, but was not able to say whether that would be possible.
He said if they could not reach a breach agreement deal with the FIA, the matter would go to the sport’s cost-cap adjudication panel and potentially even to the FIA court of appeal.
“It could draw it out for another six or nine months,” Horner said. “Which is not our intention.”
Horner said that a rule clarification in June – three months after teams had to hand their final 2021 accounts to the FIA – had changed the way unused parts were assessed under the cap and “had a seven-digit effect on our submission”.
Sitting alongside him in a news conference, Brown and Williams team principal Jost Capito both said they had not been affected, and Brown said the FIA process had been “quite thorough, quite detailed and very manageable”.
Horner said: “We had zero benefit from a development or operational perspective either in 2021 or 2022 from the way we operated in the cap.
“Our submission was significantly below the cap, we expected certain things to be potentially clarified or challenged as is the process in a brand new set of regulations. But based on professional accounting, external third parties, the expectations to police this was very clear from our side.”
He added: “Once this situation is concluded, there will be complete transparency and I will talk you through the reasoning behind our submission and why we felt each of the line items that have been challenged we believe there is a contrary position.
“The whole thing should be transparent. There is going to be no private, secret deal. It will all be absolutely above board.”
Up and down the paddock, there is a consensus among rivals that Red Bull should have a significant punishment for the breach, to act as a warning to all teams for the future, otherwise the cost cap will be rendered ineffective.
One high-profile figure told BBC Sport they thought Red Bull should be disqualified from the constructors’ championship in both 2021 and 2022, losing all their prize money.
Another said that if Red Bull had been proven to be difficult with the FIA and tried to hide spending, Max Verstappen should lose the 2021 drivers’ title, which was won after a close fight with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and in controversial circumstances at the final race of last season.
Neither are considered a likely eventuality. It is expected that the probable outcome is that Red Bull will be hit with a significant fine, running into millions of dollars, and a restriction on permitted aerodynamic research and development next year.