Red Bull overspend?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Not sure of the timing of this news, but its being denied strenuously by Horner.
Seems from his answers that there are only certain areas that are mandatorily required to be submitted by teams. Makes you wonder what CapGemini found or thought Red Bull to be spending....

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/719 ... -overspent

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... title.html

[timbo]

How come I'm not surprised that controlled spending turns out not to be too controlled?

[raymondu999]

I seem to remember that they've been accused of this since 2009

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

In 2010 ray,

2009 was when the restrictions were drawn up, august 09 I think.

For what it's worth, I think red bull are just spending in areas not outlined under the agreement. Horner himself seems to want more clarification.

[Mr Alcatraz]

This is easy for RB to pull off, Newey also does the (inovative) spread sheets

[wesley123]

Didnt even knew of a budget limit lol. Anyway they shouldnt care at all, F1 always has been a sport where large amounts of money are spent, it shouldnt be cost capped at all. Stupid rules and a dumb way to moan about.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Actually Wesley there are rules...

read the story.

[raymondu999]

I don't know if this is the case; but I've been thinking about RBR, STR and RBT (Red Bull Technology) could it be that Newey etc is employed by RBT, and not RBR? Then they do stuff for RBT at good pay; but then RBT "sells" the parts to RBR for maybe 1 Euro per front wing upgrade etc? I don't know if that's a possible loophole

[mnmracer]

Apart from whether this is true, I am 100% convinced that every team will take loopholes where they see possible. All the car constructors (Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes) can write off whatever they want to their automotive department if they really need to; Red Bull has other departments as well; McLaren just developed a road car.

[Richard]

Just a hunch, but I suspect the teams have thought of the above scenarios and possibly worded the RRA accordingly?

[bill shoe]

I like the idea of a consistent spending limit. Enforcement would be difficult but possible for a sanctioning body like the FIA.

It seems clearly impossible for a non-sanctioning third-party like FOTA to regulate and enforce a spending limit. FOTA is supposed to be a kind of union for F1 teams, so how could FOTA possibly be effective at addressing adversarial issues like overspending?

I had the impression that the FOTA controlled resource restrictions were set up as part of the (non)breakaway settlement with the Mosley regime, and the restrictions were therefore designed to be ineffective.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Agree Richard And billshoe.

I think the problem is that certain parameters haven't been worded well enough. It would also be very prudent to make this arrangment public in my view as I have yet to see anything from the FIA about this.

You only need look at red bulls ability to run specific concepts for specific tracks that all work bang on 100%. That sort of thing costs money, and lots of it. I'm sure red bull don't mean to flout the rules, and if they are operating within this grey area fair play to them.
I personally would just like to see some consistency and transparency so that the fans can at least see what's going on.

[munudeges]

Alas, Red Bull get things right because they have the right people doing the right things. There are plenty of teams throwing money under the table at problems and not seemingly moving forwards.

[...]

[Richard]

The RRA was agreed by all teams but there is very little information about it in the public domain. We know it includes restriction on the number of staff at the track, the hours that can be worked by the pit crew, testing restrictions, and the summer shut down. We occasionally hear about factory restrictions audited by an external company.

[dren]

Apart from whether this is true, I am 100% convinced that every team will take loopholes where they see possible. All the car constructors (Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes) can write off whatever they want to their automotive department if they really need to; Red Bull has other departments as well; McLaren just developed a road car.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. There will be creative ways around any sort of resource agreement. It's much easier to see how many people are working at the track, etc, but it's much harder to monitor what is spent on what and where.