Teams want 2010 rules to be ditched

Formula 1 teams have raised the tempo in their dispute with the FIA by calling for the recently ratified 2010 rules including the contentious £40m budget cap to be revoked and the cost-cutting agenda left in their own hands.

After a series of meetings over the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, FIA president Max Mosley indicated on Sunday morning that agreement on a budget cap was in prospect, although he conceded that the low original figure might not come into force until 2011.

But the teams have now written to Mosley asking the FIA to drop the planned 2010 regulations as a pre-condition of their continuing to race.Instead they want the current rules to be retained and used as a starting point for achieving further cost reductions for next season. What we have asked is basically to go back to the rules of this year, the 2009 rules, and then see together what we can do in order to make changes for next year, said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali on Sunday evening.And reflecting their increasing preoccupation with F1's governance, Domenicali added that the teams believe that they and not the FIA are best-placed to decide on the appropriate nature and scale of cost-cutting measures. Bear in mind that for sure the cost is something that all the teams are fully committed to work on, but the cost is something that is related to the business of the teams, he said. We know what we can invest. We know what we can do, and I think this is something that the teams have to discuss internally and decide on their own what they can afford to keep the value of F1 and the standard that we know. It s not something that we feel should be imposed by somebody else. Although the letter to Mosley was signed by all the teams, and Brawn CEO Nick Fry said all 10 current outfits were keen to maintain a united front in the negotiations with Mosley ahead of this Friday s deadline for entries in the 2010 championship, Williams broke ranks on Monday morning by lodging its application with the FIA.However, the Grove-based team stressed that it felt duty-bound to honour undertakings it had given to compete in F1 through to the end of 2010 and had no intention of leaving the FOTA fold.Mosley has signalled that the FIA is willing to compromise over the implementation of the budget cap by treating 2010 as a transitional year with less draconian spending curbs, in order to give the larger teams time to downsize their organisations in an orderly way. I think we may go there in one stage, he told BBC Sport on Sunday. There may be an intermediate year in 2010 that s still under discussion but then we really come to these figures in 2011. But he insisted a cap of 45 million euros was still on the agenda for 2011 and added: I think slowly we re getting to a situation where everybody is going to agree, or at least the majority will agree. I think the reason it s going that way is that everybody understands that it simply cannot go on at the present level the money isn t there. However the teams are less convinced an agreement can be reached by the official Friday deadline. I don t know really, said Domenicali. I think the points we have put on the table are pretty clear, and I think we raised some issues in the meeting that we had. It was as we said constructive, but there is an ongoing process to discuss. I think that for sure it will be a very important week because formally the entry to this championship has to be finalised by Friday. So I m expecting long days! BMW motorsport boss Mario Theissen said in response to Mosley s comments: He is more confident than I am. Certainly it was a constructive meeting. We made some progress but we didn t come to a real solution. So there is still quite some work to do if we want to have a solution that satisfies all the parties.

Date published : 25 May 2009 - 12:46:31