So the question is. Why can't the other top teams teams keep up? That is the elephant in the room isn't it? Maybe they need more dedication and effort to go with all that money they are spending - or something else - but nobody is going to gift it to them, they have to figure it out and get on with the program. That is their responsibility, their whole job.
This is the point. They don't have the money. Dieter Rencken suggested that RB spend £75m more than McLaren. So RB can afford to go up half-a-dozen technical blind alleys to get the one that works more than McLaren.
And that's McLaren. Not Marussia.
Even the argument that RB are better at getting sponsors doesn't wash. Almost all of RB's income is RB recycling its own money. Almost all of McLaren's is sponsorship.
RB's budget is over double Sauber's, nearly treble Williams', nearly five times Marussia's. How can any of these teams compete? It's in fact amazing they're all so close - 20 years ago a Marussia type team would be struggling to qualify.
Not that RB is exactly wasting its money; they spend less than Ferrari. But it gets to the point where if RB are struggling with something they just buy in more engineers with more money than anyone else to solve it. Whereas other teams have to rely on what they have.
Or they can try and get more money. Which is impossible. Fauxtus have a World Champion on their books, they were pushing for the championship lead, and what happens? They're going bust. If they can't do it, who can? Williams? They cut their cloth to match their income rather than going for broke, and are now where they were in 1976. One top ten finish all year.
The real elephant in the room is the not-so-lamented Max had the right idea on budgets. And he was vetoed by the big spenders, who are evidently not so confident they could do the best job with a level playing field. Cap everyone with £50m spends and let's see what happens. At the very least, we could have five or six more teams.
