He cautioned that teams should be wary of trying to replace experienced team members with cheaper personnel in order to stay within the cap.
The cost cap excludes the salaries of each team’s top three employees – typically the team principal and technical director plus one other – and includes everyone else with a direct involvement in the design, manufacturing and operation of the cars.
Several teams have moved senior technical people out of F1 operations and into other projects so that they don’t come under the cap, unless some of their work days are specifically allocated to the racing programme.
Big name examples include Andrew Green, who was moved into technology projects at Aston Martin earlier this year, and Geoff Willis, who is currently focussed on an America’s Cup project at Mercedes.
Horner noted that senior Red Bull engineer Rob Marshall, recently headhunted by McLaren for a technical director role, has also been working outside F1 recently.
Source: Autosport