Red Bull accepts FIA’s decision to increase F1 entry fees for next season – Formula 1 news
The Red Bull Racing team has accepted the FIA’s decision to increase the entry fees for the 2013 Formula 1 season despite having earlier problems with the cost cutting regulation.
The meetings regarding the Concorde Agreement between the teams and the FIA had been going on for some time. The agreement has not been finalised although a decision was to be reached by the end of October. One part of the agreement is the Resource Restriction
Agreement (RRA) which deals with cost cutting management. Red Bull had expressed its disagreement with the RRA and had been the only team to do so.
However, as the new regulations to be imposed for the 2013 F1 season include an increased entry fees, the team has no choice but to accept it.
“It is a difficult situation,” said Christian Horner, the team principal for Red Bull. “Jean [Todt, FIA president] has explained very clearly why there has to be an increase in fees. With the scheme they have introduced, it penalizes the higher scoring teams
more, but we can understand some of his reasoning behind that - so we accept the FIA's position.”
The new regulation states that the winner of the 2012 constructors’ title will be paying $6,000 for each point scored throughout the season along with the basic charge of $500,000. All other teams are supposed to submit $5,000 for each point with the basic
charge. The basic charge has been increased from last year’s $399,800 while no additional charges were required at that time.
The team principal for Mercedes, Ross Brawn also added his own opinion as follows. “For a lot of teams it is going to be very similar. It will make a more substantial difference for those teams that finish in the top three or four of the championship. I
was being flippant earlier, but I hope we can have that problem next year.”
Horner added that the increased entry fee completely defies the cost cutting regulation. The team’s earlier reason to disagree had been that the cost cutting was not encompassing all the elements but only some of them.
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