All 10 F1 teams complied with 2022 cost cap, says governing body the FIA

It said there had been an “extensive check of any non-F1 related activities”.

These included “multiple visits to team facilities and careful auditing procedures”.

All teams “acted at all times in a spirit of good faith and co-operation,” it said.

The findings may surprise a number of teams, because rumours have been swirling around F1 in recent weeks that at least one team had broken the cost cap again in 2022.

Last year, the FIA found that world champions Red Bull exceeded the limit by £1.86m in 2021, while Aston Martin and Williams were found of procedural breaches.

Red Bull were given a $7m fine and a 10% reduction in permitted aerodynamic research for a year as a result of their transgression.

There was particular concern about whether teams might be able to hide expenditure on F1 by claiming it was money used by other parts of the business.

Many of the teams have applied technologies businesses that work in other fields, or are part of a wider group such as a car manufacturer.

But an FIA spokesperson said there had been a “deep dive” into all non-F1 facilities, including visits to team bases by the cost cap administration team and extensive and proactive inquiries, and that anything contentious had been checked and rechecked.

The spokesperson said that other teams did not have access to the same level of detail as the FIA.

They added that no team had availed themselves of either the mechanism that exists to lodge a formal complaint about a competitor, nor had the anonymous whistle-blower process been activated.

The cost-cap administration team had approximately doubled in size since last year, the FIA said.

The cost cap process is part of a series of regulations aimed at closing up the field over a number of years.

Other rules with the same aim include the system of aerodynamic testing restrictions (ATR), which on a sliding scale from top to bottom give the most successful team the least amount of wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics time, and the least successful the most.

The values are changed every six months according to championship position.

Red Bull have dominated this season despite their punishment and ATR limitations, winning every race so far. – bbc.com