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May 23rd
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RBR to meet with FOTA to talk costs

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Red Bull Racing will meet with the remaining members of the Formula One Teams' Association on Monday in the latest effort to continue discussions with F1's teams over the future of cost-cutting efforts in the sport.

Red Bull, along with Ferrari and Sauber, have announced their decisions to withdraw from the FOTA alliance, and are currently serving a two month notice period.

But when announcing their withdrawals, the teams claimed that they remained committed to cost-cutting efforts in the sport.

The current Resource Restriction Agreement has been a point of contention for teams during the last few months, but speaking during Red Bull's celebratory weekend in Milton Keynes, team boss Christian Horner said that efforts to resolve the issue would continue.

"There is a two-month notice period and both Ferrari and ourselves have served notice," he explained to reporters regarding the current situation in FOTA, "Sauber have joined that now.

"We have a meeting with some of the other FOTA members on Monday to talk about cost control, but we'll see."

As to whether Red Bull could be convinced to return to the alliance before the end of their notice period, he added that such a turnaround was a possibility.

"Nothing is ever totally set in stone," he mused, "But for the time being we felt that it was the right decision to take to step out of FOTA."

Horner also suggested that the team would keep a "watching brief" on FOTA from now on, but said that the team was "happy" with their decision to leave.

"FOTA did a lot of good things when it was first created," he mused, "It focused on saving costs.

"In recent months, it has been less effective and more fractured in the way of thinking of how FOTA should move forward and what it is responsible for."

He added: "We have made the decision to step out of FOTA for now and we will keep a watching brief on how things evolve.

"But for the time being, we are happy to be in control of our own destiny as opposed to FOTA."

And as far as the team's commitment to cutting costs was concerned, he added that Red Bull were still keen to push on with the RRA, but suggested that the team wanted tighter controls on manufacturer teams.

"It needs to encompass all aspects of the car," he muttered regarding the RRA, "Dealing with equivalence is always quite dangerous.

"Each of the teams has a different make up, different ownership.Some belong to motor manufacturers and some are independent."

He went on: "If you look at the things that work, like the testing, like the windtunnel hours, like the restriction in personnel, the things that you can touch and feel work quite well.

"But as soon as you start trading equivalence of hours versus external spend, that's where it seems to run into some difficulty.

"There's a willingness from all of the teams to try and contain costs, it's just the manner that you do it.

"And you can't exclude the engine from that with some teams producing their own engines, so it's important to look at the teams as a whole rather than cherry-picking the chassis."

Red Bull have been accused of breaching the RRA during the 2010 season in the past, but no firm evidence has ever been produced.