Mercedes GP boss Ross Brawn demands stricter approach to Resource Restriction Agreement – Formula 1
Mercedes GP team principal Ross Brawn has asked the International Automobile Federation (FIA) for a stricter control over the budgetary limits assigned to the Formula 1 teams to make sure that they do not breach the Resource Restriction Agreement.
The Red Bull Racing team was recently accused of spending beyond the limits assigned by RRA when an audit was conducted by a famous Dutch consultancy firm, Capgemini. The team’s owner Christian Horner strongly denied all such allegations and said that they
were working within the defined limits of the RRA.
The Resource Restriction Agreement that was signed between all the Formula 1 teams in 2009 under the then FIA president Max Mosley was intended to put an upper cap on the spending of the outfits.
All teams who have signed the RRA have to adhere to the rules and regulations that it imposes on them. Under this agreement, the teams can only hire a certain number of personnel and spend a specified amount of money during a season. In case a team fails
to adhere to the agreed rules, it has to face penalties.
Brawn believes that the audit process should include a complete and thorough check of all the activities the teams get involved into during a particular season and a comprehensive document must be prepared on all the teams’ spendings.
So far, the audit process is more qualitative as opposed to quantitative. However, there should be a separate audit system for both methodology and number checking so that there is a foolproof and accurate count of the money they spend.
Brawn said, “The process done so far is to check that all teams are interpreting the regulations in the same way, and it has been successful. But we believe it has to go deeper than that, and we need auditing of the numbers because it is such a competitive
element of what we do.”
There is still a lot that needs to be improved with regards to the RRA.
Ross said, “I think there is still work we need to do with RRA to get everybody comfortable.”
Let’s see how the FIA responds to Brawn’s recommendations.
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