Team principal insists his marque spent wisely and accordingly
Last Updated: September 22, 2011 6:16pm
Horner: Denies budget claims
Christian Horner has categorically denied claims Red Bull breached Formula One's budget cap rules last year.
Following a turbulent period when Honda, Toyota and BMW all pulled out of the sport, the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA) was drawn up by the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) to guarantee the financial stability of all the teams.
As part of the development of the RRA, which is self-policing, FOTA commissioned an independent audit by Dutch company Capgemini to benchmark the teams and ensure they reported their spending in an equitable way.
The teams believed to have been targeted were McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, and one of the smaller marques, Sauber.
Within FOTA's Financial Working Group, the scope of the report was agreed and signed off by all financial directors before being sent to Capgemini.
However, reports emerged this week that Red Bull went beyond what was allowed, potentially overspending by millions of euros, which if true could have resulted in severe penalties.
It is understood, though, Capgemini's own in-house report concludes Red Bull's financial practices are perfectly legitimate and break no rules.
Denial
Horner has always maintained they spent wisely and accordingly en route to winning the drivers' and constructors' championships and said of the claims: "It is false, absolutely false.
"We agreed the scope, we worked within the scope. Job done.
"We've worked within the RRA, within the regulations that exist. It saved us money, saved the teams money.
"Unfortunately the consequence of success is people will throw stones."
Horner, though, believes the Capgemini audit has highlighted there is room for improvement within the RRA.
"It still needs to be dealt with going forward," added Horner.
"There are some fundamental issues that need dealing within it, but overall we feel it's a good thing."
Confirming Horner's belief more can be done to improve the RRA, Sauber chief executive Monisha Kaltenborn said: "What Capgemini did was a benchmark study.
"They we were looking at methodologies and how they are used. We were not in any way trying to verify the abiding of the RRA. That was not their mandate.
"It was to see how you interpret the rules and how you use them because the moment you write something in a contract it is always open to interpretation. That was the idea behind it.
"They have since submitted a report, and according to our rules it is now up to the chairman of FOTA (McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh) to assess that and share it with us.
"As we understand there are one or two issues we shall discuss within FOTA."
Credit: Sky Sports (www.skysports.com)
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