F1 Owner Tony Fernandes Calls For Spending Reduction Throughout Grid

Tony Fernandes kisses money down a rat hole F1 goodbye

Former Caterham F1 Owner Tony Fernandes said that there will "never be room for small teams like Caterham in F1 unless there’s a reduction in spending throughout the grid," according to Mike Wise of SKY SPORTS.

Fernandes said on Wednesday that outfits like Caterham, "which he sold at the end of June, will never make progress if larger teams continue to spend what are, in his opinion, vastly-inflated budgets." Fernandes: "People can blame whoever, but the big teams are as much at fault as anyone. The gap has become way too big and it's money. And so I thought, 'Well, I can’t compete.' But I can compete at QPR; I can compete at Air Asia."

Neither Caterham nor their rivals Marussia will "race at this weekend's U.S. GP after both went into administration." Both teams entered F1 in '10 having been told they could "compete with a budget cap." More established teams had agreed to "limit their own spending around that time but that deal eventually broke down."

Fernandes: "Rather than continue something where I thought, one, I wasn't able to give it as much time as possible, two, I thought we were on a beating to none anyway, you’ve got to be brave and say 'Look, we screwed up. You can’t compete; you thought you could and time to leave." SKY SPORTS