About the F1 Resource Restriction Agreement

[WhiteBlue]

Teams that build their own engines have a separate treatment in the RRA. Those departments or companies are not included in the figures. Merc have a separate company in Brixworth MBHPE Ltd. for this.

[twoshots]

Mercs engine development/plant is in Brixworth, Northampton. (They, incidentally, lost around 20% of their workforce last year.)

Does that Ferrari head count include their engine development? That seems like a very big number otherwise.

[Just_a_fan]

Does that Ferrari head count include their engine development? That seems like a very big number otherwise.

Presumably that's an indication of why Ferrari have been so against the budget/resource cap. They have the biggest team with one of the biggest budgets; they'll feel the hit more than anyone else...

[WhiteBlue]

If Michael Schmidt has been consistent in his data he must have eliminated the engine department from the F1 team. Does anybody know how Ferrari is organized? Has the gestione sportiva their own engine department or is that function outside? Worst case we have to assume that the figures are just for the team alone. Renault and Mercedes figures also do not include engine companies.

Re Ferrari feeling the hit I would not start shedding tears. They can easily transfer all excess personal to other race series like sports car racing or to their road car division. In that regard they are better set up than any other team.

[donskar]

WB wrote:
"They [Ferrari] can easily transfer all excess personal to other race series like sports car racing or to their road car division. In that regard they are better set up than any other team."

I've seen that opinion expressed before, by several posters. But it leaps to an unfounded conclusion that the "other" divisions are short-handed and/or have openings for the specific skill sets involved. How is it advantageous to strip "fat" from one part of an organization, only to transfer the fat to another organization, thus making it excessively large? Seem a bit hypocritical to me.

I'm a little sensitive to this issue because I've been in the position of having to lay off hundreds of people. It is an emotionally wrenching human experience -- not just a mathematical exercise on a spreadsheet.

[Just_a_fan]

Re Ferrari feeling the hit I would not start shedding tears. They can easily transfer all excess personal to other race series like sports car racing or to their road car division. In that regard they are better set up than any other team.

Don't worry - I shalln't be shedding tears for Ferrari. They've had things their own way for far too long in my opinion.

I would welcome their move further in to sports cars / LMP stuff though. I'm not how much capacity they have in their road car set up for a few hundred F1 engineers though...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I have found a reliable source for team head count three weeks ago. http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 95254.html



The author is Michael Schmidt from AMuS who travels the F1 circus for many years and has excellent connections.

I'm very surprised to see the figures of McLaren. They must have made very serious efforts to get the head count down.

McLaren 520 staff? I heard around 650!

Tried to find the figures for this year but it seems Ferrari are around 700, engine department excluded. Red Bull 670 McLaren 650 and then the rest.
What does the figure have to be for 2011?

[xpensive]

Williams have more people on the payroll than Renault and Mercedes? This will not last for very long, that much is for certain.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

For Mercedes read Brawn.
They are indeed small, which kind of leans me to think they will be less affected by the resource restriction. The Big three more than most, will be affected.

really useful link from AMuS, just want to see official figures if any?

[xpensive]

For Mercedes read Brawn.
They are indeed small, which kind of leans me to think they will be less affected by the resource restriction.
...

Or, I could read Honda?

And how many people at USF1, like 55? What a joke.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Nah honda to far gone now sadly.
Mercedes powered the cars so more Brawn-Mercedes than anything.

My point is even though Mercedes have purchased Brawn, they havent become a superteam overnight. The numbers have stayed the same so far as I can tell.

What is the limit for 2011?

[xpensive]

450 people at Mercedes is still a respectable number in comparison to McLaren, but Williams 490 is out of this world result-wise.

[WhiteBlue]

Let's assume that Red Bull, McLaremn and Ferrari have around 650-700 head count without engines and Merc have 450. We have a nice correlation to this year's results so far.



At this point of the championship there are three top teams and Merc is trundling clearly behind.



The expectations of the punters are also firmly on the three top teams to win the championship.

So resources do matter!! This means that we will probably not see a turn to the better in 2011 because the cars will be designed with this years resources and if you start behind you are unlikely to catch up. Next year the only consolation for Merc will be the steady driver combination which I do not expect to change and the upheaval that the RIFing will bring to the top teams.

Williams surely is a special case. They have no real technical leadership because anything that has been achieved by any technical leader since 1997 has been destroyed by Pat (Dick) Head. The figures just confirm what I have been saying for a long time.

A comparison of resources is most telling as long as you have a competent leadership. If your team is lead by silly asses (hello John Howett) you can obviously piss away a hundred times the resources to no avail.

[WhiteBlue]

What does the figure have to be for 2011?

The problem is the secrecy around the total head count figures. There are two sources who have commented on total head count in 2011:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87290.html published 24th Dezember 2009

To rein in the sport's sky-rocketing costs, Formula 1 recently installed spending caps, restricting test driving and the number of engines and gearboxes teams can build. Teams that employed as many as 1,000 staff in more freewheeling days will be allowed roughly a third of that by the end of next year (2010).

This would indicate a Dezember 2010 limit of approximately 330 full time equivalent heads.

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-new ... he-breach/ published 28th November 2009

For 2011, the F1 team personnel cap of 280 will come in to force. We certainly welcome that as it fits almost perfectly with the current operation we have in Huntingdon.

This explicitly says that in early 2011 the cap will come down to 280. Martin Birrane must have been fully aware of the content of the July 2009 dated RRA because in fall 2009 he was gunning for the 12th and 13th slot which were eventually filled by Sauber and Lotus.

My conclusion is that later in the 2010 season the resource cap will go down to 330 for chassis and operation (additional head count available for engine builders) and in early 2011 it will go further down to 280. Those are the figures which have been published by reliable sources.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

If 330 is the figure then Red Bull Ferrari and Mclaren will be hit hardest of all.
But I can think of 100 different ways to circumvent this ruling.....