A leaked invoice suggests PDVSA, the state owned Venezuelan oil company, is paying a staggering US$46 million for its sponsorship of the Williams team in 2012.
Despite its authenticity having not been confirmed, the invoice from Williams – includes the Oxfordshire based team’s correct Barclays bank account – requests the full amount in pounds sterling.

Also appearing on the internet in recent months were the full contract between team driver Pastor Maldonado and Williams, and a stamped letter from Venezuelan congressman Carlos Ramos.

The leaking of the documents, with the invoice now published on the website of the Spanish sports daily Marca, surrounds Venezuelan officials’ doubts about the legality of Williams’ lucrative PDVSA deal.

Ramos’ letter to Williams’ communications boss Claire Williams last November referred to an “ongoing investigation” by the Venezuelan parliament.

“You may … be aware that our congress granted no approval to the sponsorship contract between Williams F1 and PDVSA,” he wrote, demanding Williams divulge the “amount disbursed to date to Williams F1 by PDVSA”.

Maldonado is backed directly by PDVSA, and is famously close to Venezuela’s controversial president Hugo Chavez.

The price for customer teams of Mercedes’ 2011-specification KERS system has reportedly increased from an original EUR 1 million to 6 million.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that F1 teams initially agreed that customer supplies of the energy-recovery technology next should cost purchasing teams just 1 million euros.

A further 5 million euros per team could then be spent on developing the systems.

But instead of receiving 1 million euro invoices from Mercedes, customer teams McLaren and Force India are reportedly being charged 6 million each.

The report, published on Wednesday, speculated that Force India in particular will not be able to afford the inflated price, in addition to its 9 million euro bill for Mercedes’ 2.4 litre V8 engines.

On the bright side for Mercedes’ KERS customers, the German marque believes it can supply a system next year weighing just 21 kilograms, compared to the 25kg system in 2009.

It is believed the other KERS manufacturers – Ferrari, Renault and Williams – are not going to follow Mercedes’ lead by increasing the price of their KERS systems.

Sam Michael, technical director at Williams, is surprised at the reports about high development costs.

“We have estimated the cost of our KERS at half a million pounds (sterling),” said the Australian, “and it will not weigh more than 25 kilograms.”