Both 2022 titles have been decided, and if we’re lucky, the 2021 championship might finally be put to bed this weekend too.

Red Bull Racing’s cost cap saga is finally nearing its end, and in the early hours of Saturday morning (AEDT) the team is set to reveal what kind of penalty is coming its way.

The prospect of the governing body reaching back into the 2021 results was always unlikely, much though some have been cheering for it, but confirmation of punishment will finally end speculation that Verstappen could have his first title stripped from him once and for all.

Not that the Dutchman has had it on his mind. After living through one of the most contentious title battles in F1 history, it’s all water off a duck’s back.

Of more concern to him will be winning this weekend’s race and setting a new record for races won in a single season. But according to Carlos Sainz, he could be in a battle of six drivers at the unusual Mexico City circuit, which would be the busiest victory fight of the year.

Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso has had his seventh place from the United States Grand Prix reinstated, as he predicted, though Alpine had to go the long way around to get it done.

VERSTAPPEN BRUSHES OFF ‘SORE’ LOSERS AS COST CAP PENALTY LOOMS

Max Verstappen says he’ll have no problem brushing off critics of his 2021 championship if Red Bull Racing accepts that it broke the cost cap last season.

The FIA found that the team was the only one to spend more than the maximum US$145 million (A$223 million) through the 2021 season, which has caused considerable consternation inside the paddock.

Speculation has put the overspend at approximately $2.7 million, though no further details have been forthcoming.

The team can either accept guilt and serve a punishment or attempt to argue its innocence at an independent tribunal.

Red Bull Racing has called a press conference from Friday morning in Mexico (3:30am AEDT). It’s expected to confirm that it will accept a penalty from the FIA, believed to be a reduction in wind tunnel time as well as a fine.

Changing the result of the 2021 championship never appears to have been a serious consideration, though some have used the saga to describe Verstappen’s eight-point title victory over Hamilton as tainted.

But after such a fractious campaign, Verstappen said some people would always be bitter about the result regardless of the circumstances.

“I can [brush it off],” he said, per Racefans. “Probably they can’t and they will never be able to, so that’s a problem for them to deal with.

“They are sore anyway, so it doesn’t matter what they say or what you do.”

Verstappen said the team maintained that it hadn’t set out to break the rules, with the breach coming down to a matter of interpretation.

“From our side we feel we are not wrong,” he said. “But just some things are taken into the budget cap which are very unexpected.

“We’ll have to deal with it. But it’s also not up to me to decide what is right.”

ALONSO APPEAL SUCCEEDS AFTER MARATHON HEARING AND DICTIONARY REFERENCE

Alpine has had Fernando Alonso’s seventh place at the United States Grand Prix reinstated after a tortuous appeals process that required two separate hearings to finish.

Alonso had completed a mammoth comeback from last to seventh after his airborne crash with Lance Stroll only to be given a 30-second post-race penalty after a protest by the Haas team.

Haas had argued that Alonso’s car was unsafe because it was missing a wing mirror, which had spent several laps dangling off the car before breaking away completely.

A video meeting was called on Thursday evening in Mexico (10am Friday AEDT) to hear whether Alpine’s appeal against the decision would be allowed to proceed.

At first the stewards threw out the counter-protest on the grounds that a time penalty can’t be appealed according to the rules.

But Alpine wasn’t to be deterred, and it lodged an application for the right to have the decision reviewed based on a technicality that Haas had made its protest too late, and another meeting was convened.

The rules say a protest must be made 30 minutes after the results are published. Haas lodged its protest 24 minutes late.

A late protest can be allowed where it is “impossible” for a team to lodge one sooner, but Alpine successfully convinced the stewards using the definition of the word ‘impossible’ from the Oxford dictionary that this threshold hadn’t been met.

Alonso’s penalty was subsequently rescinded and seventh place reinstated almost five and a half hours after the first review started.

The stewards took the opportunity to criticise race control again for not telling Alonso to pit for repairs to his mirror. There also appears to be an implicit criticism of race control for suggesting to Haas that it had an hour to lodge a protest.

SAINZ TIPS THREE-TEAM FIGHT FOR VICTORY

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is one of the most extreme circuits on the calendar, with its 2.2-kilometre altitude wreaking havoc with cooling and aerodynamics.

The cars generate Monza-like levels of downforce despite being loaded up with Monaco-style bodywork, and the air is so thin that the cars hit some of their highest speeds anywhere in the sport.

Drag therefore counts for less in the rare air, and with Red Bull Racing excelling this year largely thanks to its efficiency rather than peak downforce, the championship-winning team might be set to have its advantage pegged back.

And with Mercedes increasingly close to Ferrari particularly in race trim, Carlos Sainz suspects all three teams could be in the mix on Sunday.

“I think there is a strong chance it could be a six-way driver battle for the win,” Sainz said, per the F1 website. “I think it will be an interesting one; I think we could be up for one of the most competitive weekends unless one of the teams suddenly adapts to these altitudes a lot better than the others.”

MORE MOTORSPORT

MICK OR NIC? Schumacher has one race to save his F1 career. This is what went wrong

MEXICO CITY GP: Big day arrives for Aussie gun; ray of hope for ‘helpless’ Ricciardo

The Ferrari car has tended to be quickest at circuits that demand maximum downforce, which has Sainz optimistic about his chances.

“We have the speed,” he said. “I would be a lot more worried and a lot more disappointed if on top of [last weekend’s retirement] we didn’t have the speed, but we’ve turned around the season and I am one of the quickest out there.

“It’s what keeps me motivated and keeps me positive about the year.”

STEINER BACKS BROWN’S COST CAP ‘CHEATING’ CLAIMS

Guenther Steiner has backed in Zak Brown’s description of cost cap breaches as “cheating” as Christian Horner dials up the outrage.

Brown sent a letter to the FIA last week in which he said overspends and procedural breaches of the financial regulations “constitute cheating” and recommended harsh penalties.

Horner railed against Brown’s comments at the weekend’s United States Grand Prix, describing it as “tremendously disappointing for a fellow competitor to be accusing you of cheating”.

“It’s absolutely shocking that another competitor, without the facts, without any knowledge of the details, can be making those kinds of accusations,” he said.

“You cannot go around just making that kind of allegation without any fact or substance.”

Brown attempted to defend himself by pointing out he didn’t name any team in his letter, though he wrote the missive just one week after the FIA confirmed Red Bull Racing had overspent its budget and he circulated it to all other teams that hadn’t been found to have breach the rules, making the inference clear.

Joe Saward has reported that Red Bull Racing has even sent Brown a legal letter for his comments, though it’s unclear whether it’s threatening any kind of action.

But Red Bull Racing’s overspend has been a hot topic among rival teams, who are eager to ensure the constructors champion doesn’t gain an unfair advantage from splashing more cash around.

Haas boss Guenther Steiner has fallen in behind Brown’s characterisation, saying that any overspend would logically mean a team has cheated regardless of intention.

“It is like going under weight or using too much fuel,” he said. “We got excluded from a race because a technical infringement of three millimetres, which didn’t make a difference [to] going fast or not.

“So it is cheating.”

Steiner said he hoped the FIA would hand down significant penalties if Red Bull Racing can’t disprove the governing body’s allegation.

“It needs to come out somewhere because they obviously gained an advantage by spending more money,” he said. “So you need to take that advantage away.

“Taking budget cap money away or wind tunnel runs away or something like this should happen if they cheated.”

RED BULL RACING’S FUTURE IS SECURE WITHOUT MATESCHITZ

Red Bull Racing says its future in Formula 1 is secure despite the passing of owner Dietrich Mateschitz at the weekend.

Mateschitz was one of F1’s most influential figures despite his reclusive nature. He owned both Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri — 20 per cent of the grid — and revived the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, which he owned.

F1 and other extreme sports were a key pillar in Mateschitz’s Red Bull vision, and it’s not clear who will replace the Austrian at the helm after his passing.

But Horner said the team wouldn’t be reliant on currying favour with a new management structure because Mateschitz had ensured the foundations of the F1 program were rock solid.

“The future is set,” Horner said, per Autosport. “He’s put in place a very strong foundation for the future.

“And with in 2026 Red Bull becoming a power unit manufacturer — that was the missing piece of our jigsaw, and he had the vision to enable that to happen.

“Just as we’ve done with the chassis, we will take that same spirit, his spirit, into the future engine company.”

Horner said Mateschitz had been involved in the running of the team “right up until last week” before he died.

“He had the vision for and endorsed the plan for Red Bull Powertrains, to set the team up for the future, for the long term.

“And the commitment that he’s shown to that and what he’s enabled us to create in Milton Keynes puts Red Bull Racing in a very strong position for many, many years to come.”

AlphaTauri’s future is also thought to be safe, though the team has formally and informally been on the market from time to time. It’s unclear whether Red Bull under fresh management would maintain Mateschitz’s policy of requiring any buyer to keep the team in Faenza, however.

WILLIAMS SAYS IT HAS NO BACK-UP TO ROOKIE SARGEANT

Williams confirmed the penultimate piece of the driver market puzzle when it announced at the United States Grand Prix that it had signed up American race Logan Sargeant for 2023 — at least provisionally.

Sargeant, a Williams junior driver, is currently third in championship standings of his maiden full-time Formula 2 season. He became the first American driver to partake in an official F1 session in seven years when he completed FP1 for Williams in Austin.

The only possible roadblock to his promotion is that he’s yet to acquire a superlicence, and there’s no way to know if he will until the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which will also conclude the F2 campaign.

Sargeant is able to pick up bonus points for each FP1 session completed, which combined with his junior racing CV means he must finish no lower than sixth in the standings to be eligible for the licence.

The 21-year-old is just nine points ahead of the tied drivers in fourth, fifth and sixth in the standings and only 12 points ahead of the driver in seventh.

Failing to acquire points would leave the team needing to ask the FIA for dispensation, which it was unwilling to give Colton Herta, albeit in different circumstances.

Asked whether Williams had a backup plan in place, team principal Jost Capito said it did — except it’s no particular driver and in fact nothing solid.

“Yeah, but not concrete, not a name,” he said, per Autosport. “There will be drivers who do not get a contract. There are still very good drivers, and [they] have the superlicence points on that, so that’s fine.”

Capito was instead preparing for 2023 under the assumption Sargeant would make the cut, including by running him in extra practice sessions and the end-of-season driver test.

“We want to prepare Logan as good as possible for next season,” he said. “That means he has to maximise the time in the car this year, so that’s why we gave give him three FP1s.

“It’s part of the preparation now to get Logan in the best possible position for the beginning of next season.”