McLaren director Jonathan Neale says staying united crucial for teams amidst RRA dispute – Formula 1
Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes managing director Jonathan Neale believes that all the Formula 1 teams need to remain united over the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA) issue at the meeting scheduled at the 2011 Korean Grand Prix in Yeongam.
He said that for the better future of the sport and to avoid any major disputes, it is very important that the teams should stay together. However, he admitted that it is not possible to attain complete harmony and some “degree of tension will always be
there.”
The RRA puts an upper cap on the financial spending of all the teams and under this agreement the teams are confined to a prescribed limit which the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) has signed in to.
It was recently speculated that Red Bull Racing have been spending out of the limits assigned by the RRA. The Milton Keynes-based team has, however, refuted the allegations and said that they have been very careful about not exceeding the RRA.
“There will inevitably be pressures,” Neale said, “There are those who would seek to divide the teams as we get ourselves ready for the next round of commercial negotiations, and there will be tensions of course.”
All the team bosses will now be meeting at this weekend’s Korean Grand Prix to talk over the issue, Neale said, and he feels that staying united for a better and healthy future of this sport is very crucial.
For years, Formula 1 has been a scene of rumours and speculations. Rather than getting involved into disputes, and eyeing other teams’ activities with doubt and mistrust, it is about time the teams should start trusting other teams or if not at least stop
questioning on their activities unnecessarily.
Neale said, “Everybody wants the best for their team, but I think that this generation of professional team principals are more than equipped to see the bigger picture as well as fight their own team's quarter.”
As negotiations for the next Concorde Agreement will be taking place sometime soon, it becomes all the more important for the teams to display a certain level of trust and unity.
Let’s see how the teams’ heads react at the meeting at the Korean Grand Prix at Yeongam on October 14-16, 2011.
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