The new Resource Restriction Agreement finalised till 2017
The 2010 season has seen FIA and especially Formula One work very keenly at their cost-reducing programme, the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA), which has now been further extended.
The FIA authorities came together today, for finalising the terms and conditions for the upcoming seasons. After detailed negotiations that have been taking place for a long period of time, finally all the teams and management have come to a consensus for
the new agreement. The programme has now been extended to 2017 along with some amendments in the older agreement.
The teams have already signed a cost cutting contract but that is to expire in 2012, hence another five year document got settled today.
The previous agreement held several laws which could effectively help the teams reduce their budget, like one limited each team to spend a maximum of €40 million on their external services. As per the initially signed document this amount would have reduced
to €20 million in 2011, but it has now been reported that teams have increased it to €30 million for next year.
Another very important change brought in the document is that the number of staff members in a team which is now 350 people, was decided to be reduced to 280 for the next year. However, on the demand of the teams this has now been settled at 315.
The team Principal of McLaren and the chairman of Formula One Teams' Association, Martin Whitmarsh talked to the media after finalising the deal. He was glad to announce, "The good news is that the teams have agreed to extend the duration of the RRA."
He continued by saying "In doing that, there's been some adjustment, so it's been agreed in principle and everyone has signed up to that. In some areas it's been tightened, in some areas it's been slackened."
While talking about various points of the existing agreement he declared that it holds clauses about a lot many different aspects of the sport. He added that it limits several things for example the number of team members that would be present at a Grand
Prix. He said “The existing agreement also limits things like the use of wind tunnels and CFD, and track testing.”
Whitmarsh concluded by saying, "I think there was a danger that we wouldn't be able to extend it [the agreement]," continued Whitmarsh. "I think all the teams took a sensible approach to come together and to agree to extend it for a long period of time."
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