GreenBkk Formula 1 | Horner denies excessive spending

Horner denies excessive spending

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has denied reports that the team overspent last season, thereby breaching F1's Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA).

Following the collapse of former F1 president Max Mosley's controversial budget cap, the teams agreed to the RRA in the hope of keeping costs down.

However, last month Mosley said he believed Red Bull, who won the 2010 Championship double, had spent more than they were allowed to after they asked for amnesty for non-compliance of the F1 teams' cost-saving plan.

Added to that, there are reports that Red Bull have been the more vocal in recent Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) meetings when the topic has shifted to teams' curbing their spending outside the RRA.

"At the last FOTA meeting, Red Bull asked for amnesty for the non-compliance of the cost reduction plan," Mosley told Auto Motor und Sport.

"If these reports are true, that can only mean one thing: Red Bull spent more than they are allowed to and now they are asking other teams to give them the okay. It will be interesting to see how their opponents react."

Horner, though, insists Red Bull "completely adhered" to the RRA during the 2010 Championship.

"The RRA has been a positive thing for Formula 1 - as it has genuinely saved costs," Horner told Autosport.

"Contrary to speculation, we completely adhered to the RRA within 2010 - and Red Bull Racing had only perhaps the third or fourth-largest budget in Formula 1. We've achieved great efficiency in reducing the headcount versus our external spend.

"We are all in favour of containing costs moving forward, and the RRA is a good way of achieving that - as long as it is consistent, fair, equitable and transparent across all the activities of all the teams. We don't want to turn the formula into a power-train dictated Championship.

"It is much like squeezing a balloon. You don't want to squeeze one end of it only to find that all the air is simply shooting to another position."

Credit: PlanetF1.com (www.planetf1.com)