The FIA will ditch the idea of a two-tier F1 championship, but aren’t prepared to budge much on the £40m budget. That’s what seems to have come out of Max ‘n’ Bernie’s Big Budget Cap Meeting.
The F1 supremos met the leading teams – including Ferari, Toyota, Red Bull and Renault, who have all threatened to pull out of the championship if the 2010 regulations were enforced – in London on Friday but, in typical F1 form, the outcome of the meeting is anything but clear.
“We had an interesting meeting and exchange of views,” Mosley told the BBC after the meeting. “There will certainly not be a two-tier championship, but I’d be very reluctant to increase the budget cap above £40m because I think that would discourage new teams from entering.”
Such a compromise is still unlikely to impress the big teams. Mosley revealed that Ferrari have filed an injunction with a French court to prevent the budget cap being enforced. “I’d be very surprised if Ferrari do leave,” said the FIA boss. “[But ] when people start bringing proceedings it becomes very difficult to deal with them.”
Lil’ Bernie Ecclestone echoed Mosley’s sentiments. “I think it’s been agreed we shouldn’t have [the two-tier system], we should have just one system,” he said after the meeting. “I think everyone is more or less happy with the budget cap, it’s just a case of how much.”
Big Flav Briatore might disagree. “The rules should be written by us,” said the Renault boss before Friday’s meeting. “They can’t be imposed by Max without him speaking to anyone. That’s an unacceptable way to work.”
So the situation may be stickier than Bernie is making out. The big teams seem fundamentally opposed to a budget cap, while Max and Bernie are determined to push it through and attract new teams to F1.
It certainly doesn’t look like we’ll have a resolution before May 29 – the date by which teams must register for next year’s championship – so Mosley has hinted that the deadline could be extended.
Are we looking at the beginning of the end of the budget cap argument? Or just the end of the beginning? Watch this space…
i’m first
Entry date to be delayed whilst discussion take place. Budget cap will be around £70-£100 million not £40 million. In return for accepting a budget cap the teams *may* be able to block the most wins wins ruling that is to be introduced next year. At under £100 million, they should still be able to attract the likes of Lola, Prodrive and USF1.
I’ve said it on another of the blog postings, Bernie wont let Mosley introduce anything that’ll lead to teams leaving. Bernie’s near enough the middle man, as he wants to keep commercial rights, and needs the teams such as Ferrari to make those rights worthwhile. In short, Bernie wont let Mosley hurt his finances.
the teams aren’t against the budget cap by all means.. they just think it’s to low. remember last year when all the teams and the FIA got together to discuss the budget cap? the main problem they had and the real reason why it never went through is because all the teams wanted a cap somewhere around 150mill, where as Toyota was asking for a ridiculous 400 mill.. that, and they didn’t want any FIA marshals monitoring their expenses.
the budget cap is a win win situation if they pick the right number.. you get technical and development freedom, and you also can keep your costs low, make some profit and not hear about the FIA’s constant nagging of things being to expensive.
Max and Bernie always gone their way by bluffing. About time Fota and Ferrari stand together and kick some FIA ass. F1 should be cool & fast & spending.
Uefa can´t tell Man United what to spend.
Bring the wings back to last years dims, skip KERS, run Q3 on low fuel and let them test as much as they want! Result:the true fans (who spend their time and money on this sport!) will be back!
And it ain´t always the biggest spender who is winning..look at the results of Renault over Toyota..
F1 is extreme, that is why the fans adore it!!!
Max Mosely is turning into a mini hitler!
Soon the procedure for teams entering the championship will be him and bernie pulling out the driver’s fingernails!
RIP the Ferrari F430,
The first of the best Ferraris
Correction:
RIP the Ferrari F430
The first of the best Ferraris
Today Max gave a most fatherly advise: ‘Be sure to subscribe on time, dear little teams. If you don’t meet my imposed deadline you may still enter, but with a fine attached’. Which will be substracted from the equally Max-imposed budget cap, I guess. Ain’t he nice? Well, Renault has plenty other stuff going to keep them happy for a year. BMW did Le Mans and does the WTCC. Mercedes did Le Mans and does DTM. Red Bull is not a carmaker by nature. Williams could do just about anything, I guess. Toyota has already done it all. Nobody takes Force India seriously whatever they do. Only Ferrari are well & truly buggered, since they’ve kept exclusively to the F1 for decades. The only other thing is that sorry A1GP car they made.
Oh, and McLaren of course. They make pretty good roadcars I gather. And they also did Le Mans.
Are you forgetting that Ferrari do le mans as well as all their one make series. Also have you heard that Aston/ prodrive might not be entering because of the politics which means that the proposed cap is attracting 2 teams whilst only keeping 3 meaning that theirs only gonna be 10 cars next year.
Max if got Reading this don’t do a cap just decrease the budgets of the top 4-5 teams by like 10 million quid a year until everyones on level pegging. Hey while your at it throw out the rule book I wanna see brawn with a 1 litre v6 that has a million turbo chargers up against Ferrari with a 245466 litre v334445578 and both weighing less than a feather and generating so much downforce that the ground breaks. Maybe each team could even have a rifle that they could use in one race only to either kill their opposition or blow their tires come on you know it makes sense
P.s. To the stig the f430s replacement the f450 will be miles better and will destroy the lp560-4 with it’s 4.5 litre v8 developing 550 bhp and 585 bhp when you activate kers.
do i stop watching Formula One now or at the end of the season when Ferrari are actually gone from the sport completely?
Formula One – lost the soul.
Meh. If Ferrari leaves I will have to find a new team to hate.
Mosely is an ass, and shouldnt be anywhere near the position of power he currently has. I could live with a budget cap of 150, maybe 100 but 40 is far too low. I also want nothing standardized, give the teams full technical freedom now.
I just want to get back to the days where the FIA made some loose rules over length of the wings and car and let the teams at it. No budget cap, no restrictions just good old fashioned constructors competing
I’ll be very upset if those teams leave. Renault and Ferrari are basically the Heart and Soul of F1. I personally support Red Bull Racing and if they leave i really dont know who i will support. Force India?
I agree with Simon, it’ll be somewhere in between 70-100m. Bernie won’t allow the big teams to leave. Anyway, the thing I really don’t get is why are they so hung up on the budget cap when instead they should be concentrating on reinstating the confidence of investors and bringing more money in.
Then again, if the new rules increase the number of cars on the grid for next seaaon and provides for more competition on the track, maybe this budget cap is a good idea.
I’ve just contradicted myself there, have’nt I?. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that the FIA (Mosley) should be very careful and crafty with these new regulations, we can’t afford to have anymore disasters like KERS.
And Bernie, I think is getting softer. In the past ha’d have just ordered the teams to do things and (in Clarkson’s words) shut everyone, who did’nt agree, in the back of a van and broken thier legs. Come on Bernie! Stick it to em’.
@Mark: Yes, I forgot. I wonder why… A F430 in the GT2 class, was it?
see? Mosley IS bluffing!
new teams will also join F1 even if the budget caps above 40m, even 100m maybe (just not as much teams will want to join at this rate). But then again… Do we really need THREE new teams to join? I mean I’m sure everyone here will still be happy even if Aston Martin/Prodrive is the only new-comer at the end of the day… Yes?
By the way, does somehow less budget will make less sponsors and investors (if I’m doing my math correctly)…
Why oh why aer the rules in F1 so stringent? I understand that safty of the drivers is a procasuion but come on your adverage moto GP rider can fall off at 180mph instead of being safe in a F1 car! I think a bugdet is a good idea maybe £100mill but giving the teams the opp to make a car go around a track as fast as humanly possible is what the fans want! Turbos, Unlimited Revs, Ground Effect, everything should be fine if the car is built to take a crash!
Even believe all this news about new teams is bluffing. Prodrive won’t be so stupid, look at what F1 did to the image of Jaguar. Aston Martin is no F1 brand. Ferrari is, but Aston Martin not.
How about a budget cap of £100m, and every year it drops by £10m?
Also, 3 new teams is awesome. How much better is it when the grid is packed with cars? 26 cars = more crashing, head to head battles etc.
All win situation!
‘“We had an interesting meeting and exchange of views”’ = “I don’t agree with any of them”.
‘the situation may be stickier than Bernie is making out’ – well that can be taken out of context…
So what’ve they decided? So far as I can tell, they’ve outed moans of a >>possible<< 2-tier championship and otherwise achieved nothing. Plus there goes Flav with his indignant chin-wagging again. Stop whinging man!
I agree with Robby about AMF1 – Aston Martin doesn’t fit F1, and nor did Jaguar (for the pathetic 5 seasons they were there). Prodrive should enter as, well, Prodrive. They’re a much sportier outfit, making DBR9s, 500 LM cars, Rally Subarus, and that P2 thing that made JC vomit.
Mark, it’s very easy to forget that Ferrari’s in Le Mans, because their effort is so, er, so-so. Their FIA GT3 effort is better – oh wait… Ok, their GT2 entry, well, not THEIR entry, but a privateer F430 team is second in the GT2 team championship thus far.
But Ferrari haven’t entered sports car racing as a factory team since the 1970s. Perhaps time to start up again? Would be a nice way to debut the F450 I suppose.
well said stigs mummy
force india for the win
at the wtcc in pau last weekend this happened
@ STIGGY .I WATCHED THAT RACE IT WAS CRAZY!
WHO CURRENTLY IS THE BEST RACING DRIVER? BUTTON?HAMILTON? VETTEL? OR SOMEONE ELSE
adrian sutil, hamilton thinks he’s good and he’s world champ!
well said bones(14)
-well sort of watch this it’s from anothr tg blog.
that is’t a f1 car but it looks LIKE A NORMAL ESPACE WITH A WHOPPING GREAT SPOILER really but i hear it revs upto 18,000 NOW THATS GOOD
PS.THEY COPIED TOP GEAR HOW DARE THEY!
YankeeDoodle?
@Mikeado-Sorry for being boring, but Ferrari won the IMSA GT championship, including the Sebring 12 hrs, in 1995 with the F333 SP. I agree that they should have a bigger presence in motorsport overall;how about a 612 rally car? I seem to remember an article about driving one on dirt roads in Peru…
The budget cap should go ahead it will level the playing field even more than the new rules did this year which has resulted in some fantastic racing and shown the big teams that just cos they have money dont mean that they will win!! Stop teams buying wins!!
Screw the budget caps. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and if that sado masochist mosley wants to tuern it into a budget series i dont see why premium brands who have been in F1 for a long time should be there. I dont see the EPL stating that teams can not spend money on getting the best players.
@renault f1: yet another weird french invention… You wouldn’t believe that screaming F1 sound came from A VAN, would you?
@lambo dude!: what?
wait! i got another idea, put that renault engine in a R500! yes! boom!
Mosley, F1 isn’t an amateur racing series, its not weekend comedy cars. If companies can’t afford the 100-150 million euros a year that being competitive in F1 costs, then there are plenty of other motorsports they can join. Yes, Honda pulling out scared you, but eventually the world recession will end, car manufacturers will start making profits again, and they’ll enter F1 again, as its a fantastic marketing tool. You don’t need to radically alter the rules just because one team left F1.
So what if Ferrari will pull out, who will they be then? Just another fast car maker. Their cars will have no pedigree. F1 still is, and always will be the pinnacle of motor sport. Dinosaurs!!!!!!
Max and Bernie are decided to ruin F1s original idea. If teams cant afford the F1 expenses the solution is not to decrease this expenses, but to join any other motorsport available.
Get rid of Bernie! He just takes the sport for the money and doesn’t care about the history of it!
True, D_Bob, if Ferrari leave F1 they’ll have nothing really. Let’s be honest though, its very unlikely they will leave, hopefully
sorry yankeedoodle i was very bored.
FERRARI ARE HUGE I DOUBT THEY WILL PULL OUT OF F1
@Thundersley25 HOW COULD THERE BE A 612 RALLY CAR COS EVERY TIME I WRECKED IT WOULD COST HUNDREDS OF GRAND TO PUT RIGHT.
@YANKEEDOODLE WHAT!
THIS IS’T TOP GEAR OR F1 THIS IS ..WELL.. IT’S HARD TO SAY… FIFTH GEAR.
THIS IS’T TOP GEAR OR F1 THIS IS ..WELL.. IT’S HARD TO SAY… FIFTH GEAR.
SORRY FOR REPEATING…
what no one is asking and needs to be asked is did the other teams know about the veto ferrari had if not they have been cheating and the FIA have been helping them to for the last ten years.
But no one is asking this simple question
@ROBERTS RADIOS.COM Get Sebastien Loeb to drive it, because he never crashes.
Ha ferrari lost the court injunction against the FIA. Bloody good job – I dont think Ive seen such sore losers since . . . well ever actually. I just wish they’d shut up and go if they’re going, or just shut up full stop if they’re staying
and for the record, everytime all the manufacturers pull out of BTCC, it makes for brilliant racing and i see no reason why F1 wouldnt follow suit. the racing in the cosworth DFV era was always exciting so, nope ferrari, we arent bothered by your threats and i daresay F1 will be better off with a better balance of privateers and manufacturers
@ Thundersley25 good point.
jimmy just look at McLaren when they tried to gain a point with a lie, don’t need to go back too far to remember WORSE sore losers… Max himself said he is glad Ron is no more cause now McLaren are like clay for him to shape as he likes.
F1 better? hahahaaaaaaa!!! good one! Next thing we know we’ll see Hyundai and Kia, oh, and maybe Tata too having a team on the grid. Very exciting indeed. Just cause other teams didn’t have THE BALLS it doesn’t mean the ones THAT DO are sore losers.
Somehow I keep agreeing with the reds, although I hate Ferrari’s little macho chesthairs. Athletics is all about the athletes, but motorracing should be about manufacturers developing still better cars. That can’t be done by artificially capping budgets. If any financial crisis limits budgets, that’s alright. If Max does, it’s not. You can’t uphold it anyway. If the application of a rule can’t be monitored, it’s a bad rule. If Ferrari stays, with the cap, they’ll still spend 400 mln a year. It just won’t show in the books.
For instance: all those mlns gave us enginemapping, telemetrics, aerodynamics, monocoques, tractioncontrol and carbon brakes. Real assets for the car industry as a whole. And flappy paddles off course… er…
Hehe
I’m calling them sore losers because they lost today and immediately labelled formula one formula GP3. And mclaren eventually owned up that they had acted like chumps so im not sure how thats being a sore loser
and tata sponsors ferrari already actually!
Tak
I can feel where your coming from but having a 40 mil cap wont stop innovation. it has already been mentioned that F1 in the early nineties was on around this mark and that was F1’s most innovative period – as the recession continues and the price of raw materials drop we will see the innovation. personally i think the potential of a 4wd car with adjustable wings is brilliant
I’m a massive F1 fan, I’ve been watching it since i was about 10 or 12 years old, and I’ve normally made efforts to watch every race since about 93 – 94. Some years have been amazing, and some utterly pointless. i used to go to the british GP every year from 95 onwards, but stopped in 2005 due to the soaring cost compared to Europe. I would normally be one of the last people to say I have had enough. But, Over the last 3 to 5 years there has been an endless stream of scandal and controversy. and I really think this will be the last straw for the FIA, the teams, the sponsors, and most of the fans.
Regardless of which team or driver you favour, and regardless of who leaves this year, Mosley is making a fine job of destroying the sport beyond repair, and it will not recover. This season has been amazing so far, not just because of Brawn, but the racing is genuinely better, and that is a sad thing because it will not be remembered for the racing, it will be remembered for the failings of the FIA and Eccleston to ensure the sport survives into 2010, in a format, and with teams that people are interested in watching.
If you don’t get what i mean by the last sentence, try tuning into a race series you know nothing about, and enjoying it. It won’t happen, you’ll turn off after 10 mins, and not make the effort to watch the next one. Thats where F1 will be next year, 30 minute highlites at 10pm, and crashes on youtube.
Here in Finland I pay 167,4 euros a year to get the channels to watch F1 Live! I wouldn’t pay anything to watch some b-series and that’s for sure. As a matter of fact I’m thinking about abandoning the channels right now because of this rape and murder of the best motorsport in the world! You cannot uphold the magic without shitloads of money!
If there is a budget cap and Ferrari walks, we will have better and more entertaining races in our sand pits in Finland!
Demoing, yes all the teams knew about Ferrari’s veto privilege, however I can’t think of any time in the last two years they have used it.
Ferrari trying to over rule FIA.. though it would be for the better, did they really think they would get anywhere? once Scuderia Ferrari quits, everyone will follow. bye bye Formula One. simple as. except, what am i going to do with that 2 and a half hours of ever fortnight that i take out to watch Formula One? i got a season to plan this out.
Mos is a loonie. I don’t know what is he trying to achieve. Take over F1 for what? To prove that apart from appaling spare time activities he is acctually worth something or maybe just take world’s eyes of his dangler? This year we have FIA president ellection and this way no one will dare to step in.
He proves that he is strong and able and after this whole two-tier-budget-cup mess no one will give a monkey about his ‘private life’.
F1 will suffer badly. It already does from lack of stability, falling ratings and sponsors runing away.
So Max: We want to watch racing. As good as it can get. If it meens money so be it. We want to see Ferrari as well as Lola (stupid name) not your ugly face grinning from TV screens. If Lola can’t afford to race in F1… Tough. I hate Italians but would rather have them that people I know nothing about in my favourite sport.
As for you Max, I know one good ’sauna’ in Soho.
Apparently they havefull stock of german WW2 memorabilia.
Ferrari will be sweet if they can make their own race series with the others who are pulling out maybe they could call it f up-yours-mr-max-mosley-co s-we-ain’t-doing-what-you -want-us-to-do and to get in his face they could spend a billion pounds per race have no regulations and have a race everyday and everywhere.
If Ferrari are gonna do this all they really have to do is get Italy to suppourt them oh wait a minute they already have the governments suppourt.
WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOO!!
Scott Speed for USF1?