Mosley reiterates plans to slash budgets

Max Mosley

The FIA President is determined to cut the costs of competing in F1, claiming that a budget cap is the necessary place to start at. At present some teams spend over £200m per season, with Toyota reportedly topping the charts last year with a budget close to £250m.

"It's absurd that teams spend vast amounts scratching around for tiny gains," Mosley told the Sunday Times newspaper. Running wind-tunnels night and day, using huge amounts of power, to find a tenth of a second can't be justified. That's what's so sad about F1 at the moment.

"But thinking of something really clever which doesn't cost a lot of money is one of the skills of engineering. The attraction for me of the cap is that it gives you the maximum freedom without giving you the maximum budget."

The FIA President is confident that the cap would see Formula One hold onto not only the privateers but also the manufacturers currently racing in the sport.

"One of the big manufacturers said if we can get the budgets down, so they are not having to spend €200m, but €50m or less, they'd be in the sport for ever. But if they keep on having to spend big, they have to be winning, and clearly they can't all win."

The 67-year-old also warned the F1 teams that should they fail to halve the downforce on their cars by next season he will do it for them by changing the compound of the Bridgestone tyres that the teams use.

"Teams are supposed to reduce downforce on their cars by 50% for 2009, which should make overtaking much easier. All that complex bodywork works very well in still air, but once in another car's slipstream, it doesn't work," he said. "But I've seen it all before, and I'm deeply suspicious the 50% won't be 50% when the time comes.

"But because we control the tyres, we can just reduce the grip. I can say to Bridgestone, 'Make them harder'. If we went far enough with that, the cars would start sliding around again." PlanetF1.com