The RBR and STR chassis are designed and made by a third company. It’s called something like Red Bull Technology. It will have an entirely separate budget.

- It’s ironic; you really can’t call it “Formula One” anymore. The dramatic difference in revenue between the manufacture teams and the “Garagesters” is amazing. That said, the statement that rings true with other sports now rings with Formula One: It is not how much money you spend, it is what you do with it.

- This might be their total expenses, but I wonder what their revenue is? It’s oblivious looking at the numbers that each manufacture pours perhaps $250 million apiece and get the rest through advertising. Some of the manufacture teams seem to be better at bring in sponsors (like Ferrari, Renault, McLaren, and perhaps BMW) then say like Honda. Any place which breaks that down?

- How the @#@& can Honda be THAT bad with a nearly $400 million budget? Really, give me that much and even I could build a better car. My god! Brawn certainly has his work cut out for him.

- I am surprised that Toro Rosso and Red Bull’s budget are that similar. Is it really a $36ish million different between a customer and a chassis supplier? Wow!

there you go, my daily rubbish contribution.

For example, if Toyota wanted a wind tunnel they would have to go and spend (let’s say) $50 million this year. Ferrari already have one (or two) that was built several years ago and they probably only spend $5 – $10 million on its operating costs this year. Which means Ferrari has about $40 million at its disposal to gain an additional tenth per lap that Toyota does not.

I believe the fine amount came from Max’s scheming pea brain as being sufficient to hurt McLaren’s competitiveness this year. Like all things dealing with Ron, Max underestimated him yet again.

What I’d like to know is what the income to Ferrari and Toyota are from their engine supply deals, and what the cost is to produce the extra engines and services? I suspect they make a lot.

It’s still a shocking amount for a punitive fine (and the debate on whether it was appropriate or not has been done) but in the context of a season’s budget coupled with the observation that they are still within reach of this year’s constructor’s title (and the vague memory that they don’t have to pay it all at once) it does sort of illustrate that *if* someone actually *wanted* to punish them financially, then merely one order of magnitude less would pretty much fail to do so.

1) Do we know how much Bernie gives the teams per point from the TV rights?
2) I’m also curious if the winning drivers and teams get a cheque after each race and if so how much?
3) I’m always interested how the sponsors translate the sponsorship money the give to the teams into presumably increased business revenue terms.

Honda and Toyota have lots of cash available to them but, for whatever reason, they aren’t using it as well as McLaren or Ferrari. This isn’t a surprise, and I think it was once said of Honda or Toyota (or both, at different times) that it doesn’t have a budget for motorsport, it simply applies the resources it needs to win. So, are the big Japanese teams wasting their money on blind alleys, redundant technology, layers of middle management or what?

Interesting to note that McLaren are outspending Ferrari, who were long assumed (until Toyota anyway) to have the biggest budget in F1 – feeling the pince from lower Marlboro spending perhaps?

Also struck that Renault’s budget isn’t actually that much less than the likes of McLaren and Ferrari – Flavio usually boasts about how his team get the most from significantly lower resources. But they have a budget that’s as high as 88% or Toyota’s which seems rather more than I would have assumed a frugal, efficient team would have had. Certainly, it’s higher than BMW Sauber’s…

Another interesting feature of these numbers is the difference between Red Bull and STR – not very much really. Does this indicate that the costs of designing and developing the cars come from the Red Bull Technology budget rather than either of the teams, or simply that they split costs between themselves?

And to close with another old saying – how d’you make a small fortune from motor racing? Start with a large one.

and Honda? well i thought japanese culture was all agaist inneficiency.

when you see it from this perspective, cost/point, you can tell which teams are the most competitive.