Red Bull has "questioned plans to introduce a budget cap into Formula 1 next year," according to Andrew Benson of the BBC. Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner and McLaren Sporting Dir Sam Michael "objected to the idea of a cost cap at a meeting last week." Discussions have so far centered on a figure around the $200M mark "for a maximum budget for a season." Horner said, "A top-down way of dealing with costs is not the right way of doing it. Bottom-up is a better way." Horner said "absolutely everybody" who was present at last week's meeting agreed F1 needed to reduce costs but "a couple of teams" did not think a budget cap was the right way of addressing the issue. Top teams Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes are all spending more than £200M ($332M) a year on their F1 programs, whereas teams such as Marussia and Caterham, which were at the back of the grid in '13, "exist on less than a third of that." He also said that "the introduction of new turbo engines was driving costs even higher." Horner: "It's a bit stupid talking about controlling costs when we're inflicting ourselves with the most unbelievable cost hike the sport has ever seen" (BBC, 1/28).
