Mosley meets with FOTA chief

Luca di Montezemolo

(GMM) Max Mosley on Wednesday met with his Ferrari counterpart and F1 teams' alliance FOTA chairman Luca di Montezemolo in Nice, France.

The FIA president will reprise the meeting after this month's Chinese grand prix with the entire FOTA contingent, to discuss the "urgent" need for "very significant" cost cuts.

Crucially, Mosley seems to have won the full backing of F1's chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who told The Times newspaper that he also wants to see teams use a standard engine in 2010.

"The thing I am most excited about is pushing and pushing and pushing the homologated engine idea," the Briton said.

The idea is that F1's manufacturers build their own engines according to a common design, with only one scheduled change per driver allowed each season.

Formula One chiefs will meet later this month to discuss a range of urgent issues affecting the sport, including the ongoing global credit crisis.

The announcement was made following talks between FIA president Max Mosley and Luca di Montezemolo, the president of Ferrari and chairman of the newly-formed Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA).

The FIA-FOTA talks are scheduled to take place following the Chinese Grand Prix on October 19.

A statement released today by the FIA read: “After a constructive meeting they [Mosley and Di Montezemolo] agreed that the FIA president would invite the full membership of FOTA to a meeting immediately following the Grand Prix of China.

“At this meeting the FIA will discuss and share with the teams the strategic decisions which are now urgently required, having regard to current worldwide economic problems.

“The main topics for the meeting will be: very significant and urgent reductions in costs; future technical regulations for chassis and drive train; maintaining the competitive element – future performance differentiators."

The news comes just a day after Mosley told the BBC that Formula One will be “in serious difficulty" if it fails to implement cost-cutting measures by 2010.

“It had become apparent, long before the present economic difficulties, that Formula One was unsustainable," Mosley said.