Why the lack of “needle” between Red Bull and Ferrari in F1 2022 is a mirage

“Well, Mattia is a nice guy. So, I mean, it's just a different kind of competition. But you're writing Toto off. There's plenty of time for him to get himself back in the show.

“We're very much focused on ourselves. All nine teams are our competitors. Last year there was a lot of needle. There was a lot going on off track, as well as on track. This year seems much more focused about what's going on on-track, and I think the racing has been great between Charles and Max.”

So said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner at the recent Miami Grand Prix. It was an intriguing line, for many reasons. But perhaps most of all because it is something of a mirage over what is really going on in the 2022 title fight – this time between Horner’s squad and Ferrari, rather than Toto Wolff’s Mercedes team.

For a start, Horner was speaking in the team principals’ press conference ahead of third practice in Miami. It was occurring deep in the bowels of the Hard Rock Stadium – the opposition locker room for whatever NFL team is taking on the Miami Dolphins, disguised for F1’s press purpose – a near five minute walk from the paddock if not dashing there after hastily filing a session report. And Horner was talking in the second half, after Wolff had appeared in the first.

Why all this geography and timing matters is because Horner had actually arrived nearly 10 minutes before his part of the press conference was due to start. Having established the wait, Horner opted to come and sit among the assembled journalists, rather than hover awkwardly in the entrance – to the side of the stage where he’d soon be speaking.

Autosport spotted that rather than wait for Wolff, who happened to be talking when Horner arrived, to finish, Horner walked in and found a seat at the back, drawing a flicker of recognition from his rival.

Horner stated that Red Bull's 2022 F1 battle with Ferrari has had less needle than its Mercedes scraps in 2021

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Now, there could’ve easily have been nothing deeper at all in Horner’s timing. After all, once Wolff had finished his point, FIA press conference host Tom Clarkson would’ve invited the next question to be asked and anyone entering at that point would’ve been equally, and only slightly, disruptive to proceedings.

But it’s not exactly a stretch to consider that Horner decided on the spur of the moment to try and put Wolff off – by walking in accompanied by his press attache and fleetingly diverting the room’s attention.

It’d be a minor point scored, but this is F1 – the oft-called ‘piranha club’. This is what team principals are supposed to do – find any way at any moment to pry and needle their way a competitive edge. Even if it appears staggeringly petty (and even imagined).

He’s right, this year does seem “much more focused about what's going on on-track”. But only right now. And only because the sporting action hasn’t yet descended into the ugly and carbonfibre-costing rancour that developed between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in 2021

Just envisage if at some point later in that weekend a ruffled Wolff had had the memory of Horner’s press conference entrance cross his mind when a critical decision needed to be taken. And he’d then bungled it because of his distraction. Unlikely, given he’s far too experienced and wise and anyway seemed to take absolutely no real notice of the incident in the moment. But it remains possible.

Indeed, if it were still Mercedes that Red Bull was vying with for 2022 supremacy and not Ferrari, then it’d likely be swords drawn, not merely needles out.

But back to Horner’s words – spoken after he had shared a seemingly friendly encounter with Wolff and McLaren boss Zak Brown away from the microphones as they exited the first part of the Miami press conference. He’s right, this year does seem “much more focused about what's going on on-track”.

But only right now. And only because the sporting action hasn’t yet descended into the ugly and carbonfibre-costing rancour that developed between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in 2021. At this stage four races in last year, that pair had clashed on-track twice – at Imola and in Spain. Plus, there was the in-race Bahrain GP spat between their teams over track limits.

Verstappen and Leclerc's battles have so far been cordial, and without contact

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

In 2022, Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have gone wheel-to-wheel at every round bar Melbourne (where they might’ve done had Verstappen been able to make Leclerc pay for his small second safety car restart error). But they haven’t come to blows. Or, more accurately in the case of the 2021 Spanish GP, one has not been forced to turn out of a crash because the other has forced the issue.

The opposite to that incident happened at Silverstone last July and Verstappen and Hamilton famously collided. That’s where it all boiled over between Red Bull and Mercedes.

A very toxic atmosphere spread quickly from there. It was fanned by what the former perceived as the latter over-celebrating when Verstappen was being checked over in hospital. Then Red Bull really over did its subsequent PR campaign – given Hamilton was ultimately at fault for the crash – by having Alex Albon recreate the Briton’s line in a doomed bid to have the Copse clash put under further stewards’ review.

In another way, Horner is also wrong – there has already been plenty of needle between his team and Mattia Binotto’s Ferrari squad thus far this year. And much of it has the potential to develop into a full blown spat even if Verstappen and Leclerc can continue to keep things clean on-track.

The cost cap comes to mind first. It was intriguing to hear, after Leclerc’s Miami defeat, Binotto repeatedly reference Red Bull’s early season spending and how that might impact its season-long development programme given it has brought regular smaller developments throughout the initial part of the year and Ferrari has not.

“I hope,” Binotto said, “because there is a budget cap, that at some stage Red Bull will stop development. Otherwise, I will not understand how they can do that.”

He later added, while referencing the gap between the two teams as being “a couple of tenths” leaving Miami, that “how much they developed compared to us, is that a concern? I would say not, because I don't think that the differences are huge. If there is a concern it’s how much they are developing considering the budget gap.”

Ferrari has expressed doubts over whether Red Bull can continue its recent rate of development within the confines of the cost cap

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Red Bull has made its own digs in this area, with its motorsport advisor Helmut Marko pointedly telling Autosport’s sister site Motorsport-Total that Carlos Sainz’s various crashes so far this year “can’t be cheap” when considering the cost cap spending limit.

Then there’s the minor controversy surrounding the different floors Ferrari ran in Pirelli tyre testing after the Imola round. This was probed and found to be in accordance with the rules after the Ferrari car was damaged and repaired between sessions, but it was understandable why rival squads asked the FIA for clarification on the issue.

Add in the extra security at Ferrari’s recent Monza filming day and the fervent speculation that drew and suddenly the 2022 title fight doesn’t seem quite so platonic as Horner’s Miami comments suggested. It is, however, all the better for it.

"We need to make sure that we've got the right policing on that because it can be, let me say, a game changer in the fight for developments" Mattia Binotto

But a major cost cap row has the biggest potential to send this championship fight to new and unexplored levels of unpleasantness. Given its incorporation is so key to the health of current and future F1 overall, not to mention for the teams themselves too, any breach is expected to be sanctioned harshly. Championship exclusion has been mentioned.

The FIA has to police how the teams are adhering to the cost cap, which does not include marketing expenditure, driver salaries and those of a team's three highest-paid staff members. As early as round two this year, there were already calls to ensure that was being done rigorously.

“We need to make sure that we've got the right policing on that because it can be, let me say, a game changer in the fight for developments,” Binotto said in Jeddah.

Autosport understands that in order to police the budget cap, there are multiple layers of FIA scrutiny.

First, the teams must submit their financial information from each reporting period for the governing body to analyse. It can then review and inspect that information, plus with visits to team facilities, at any time to ensure that what has been declared on submissions is indeed happening in reality.

Ferrari boss Binotto has already urged the FIA to be rigorous in its policing of the cost cap

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

The FIA also has onsite personnel checking the trackside operations and inventory of the teams at each race to ensure they comply with the relevant submissions and declarations under the cost cap.

That all relies on team co-operation and them not finding creative ways to get around the cost cap. There are no outright suggestions of impropriety right now, but it’s worth noting here how much debate there has been of late regarding the relationships between customer teams – i.e. teams operating at the cap limit and how much of anything they might share with teams that have space to rise up to it based on their previous operations.

That’s what is being discussed publicly. Something much more explosive might be going on behind closed doors. Again, not that it is at any team, but if outside observers can merely consider it, then those trying to gain a competitive edge can too and take such thoughts further.

That’s why the cost cap is such a hot button issue. And that’s also why every attempt to gain an edge – even with just an artful press conference entrance – is worth noting too.

So, the Red Bull versus Ferrari title battle is cordial right now. But it won’t take much to set off a much greater and potentially much more costly conflict.

Will the Ferrari versus Red Bull battle remain cordial?

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images