 |
Updates |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Next Race SANTANDER BRITISH GRAND PRIX | 19 - 21 June 2009 | ||||||||||||||
|
 |
 |
| FIA stands firm on budget cap plan | ||||
| ||||
FIA President Max Mosley's plans for a €45 million (US $65m) annual budget cap applied to each Formula One team will go ahead as planned, the sport's governing body has announced.
Following a meeting held on Monday between FIA financial experts and representatives of the eight Formula One Teams Association members, no progress on the issue was accomplished. In a statement issued today, the FIA placed the failure of yesterday's meeting squarely on the shoulders of the rebel teams' alliance. "Unfortunately, the FOTA representatives announced that they had no mandate to discuss the FIA's 2010 financial regulations. Indeed, they were not prepared to discuss regulation at all," the press release read. "As a result, the meeting could not achieve its purpose of comparing the FIA's rules with the FOTA proposals with a view to finding a common position." Mosley's 2010 regulations aim at reducing the cost of participating in Formula One by imposing a budget cap. The plan gives private outfits the opportunity of competing with manufacturer-backed entries by establishing a spending limit on the majority of team operations, excluding certain salaries and marketing expenses. The FOTA members are demanding that Mosley's plan be replaced by their own, which contains a higher budget cap associated with their own cost-cutting measures. With no common ground being determined during Monday's meeting in London, and with the FIA again rejecting the FOTA proposals as inefficient, the FIA has decided to maintain its course and stands firm with its controversial 2010 budget-capping regulations. The governing body indicated: "In default of a proper dialogue, the FOTA financial proposals were discussed but it became clear that these would not be capable of limiting the expenditure of a team which had the resources to outspend its competitors. Another financial arms race would then be inevitable." "The FIA Financial Regulations therefore remain as published," the FIA statement concluded. Unless the rebel teams suddenly decide to drop all their demands – a very unlikely scenario - an agreement must be reached between the FIA and the FOTA representatives by Friday June 19th. Failing any agreement by this coming Friday, the Ferrari, Toyota, Renault, BMW, McLaren, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Brawn teams will be removed from the 2010 championship entry list and replaced by a plethora of new outfits waiting in the wings, all having already accepted Mosley's terms in order to enter F1. The FIA has been accusing certain elements of the FOTA alliance of purposefully blocking any positive progression in what has become an all-out war for a higher degree of implication from the teams in the governance of the sport. All eight FOTA members, in addition to the car manufacturers themselves, have declared their readiness to break away from Formula One in order to establish their own self-governed single-seater championship.
|
||||
|
|
| Massa and Webber look at breakaway option | ||||
| ||||
I n view of the crisis between the FIA and the Formula One Teams Association, and the increasing prospect of a meltdown this Friday, F1 drivers Felipe Massa and Mark Webber - who both drive for FOTA member teams - said an alternative series should now be considered a serious option.
"As the teams appear to be united, then maybe it is time to look at doing something different that could be better for the sport," said Ferrari's Massa. Red Bull's Webber wrote in his BBC column: "We want to drive for the best teams and race against the best drivers. If it's not the FIA Formula One World Championship, so be it." Batting in the media for Max Mosley, however, was the FIA President's friend Gerhard Berger, who told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport that "some men dream of playing Ecclestone and Mosley. " But the former Grand Prix winner and team co-owner doubts the threats of a breakaway championship can be followed through. "BMW and Mercedes really have other problems at the moment: like selling cars," said the Austrian. However, last Friday the European Automobile Manufacturer's Association (ACEA) promised to support its F1 teams in finding "an alternative way to practice this sport in a manner which provides clarity, certainty of rules and administration, and a fair allocation of revenues to the competing teams." |
||||
|
|
| Force India unlikely to debut KERS in 2009 | ||||
| ||||
H
eading into this weekend's British Grand Prix, it is increasingly unlikely that Force India will fit a KERS system to its 2009 Formula One package.
The Silverstone-based team had intended to begin using Mercedes' energy re-use solution at the Nurburgring in Germany, but Adrian Sutil now admits that the KERS debut will "certainly not" take place at either of the next two races. "If the performance of the KERS teams is analysed, it (KERS) seems to be no great advantage," the German driver is quoted as saying on Tuesday by Auto Motor und Sport. Sutil added that to run with KERS at either Britain or the subsequent event in Germany would be "just too soon. " The team's commercial director Ian Phillips agreed, saying that Force India wants to assess the merits of "major aerodynamic updates" separate from other significant changes. Mercedes' Norbert Haug added: "I do not know if they (Force India) want to use KERS this season." |
||||
|
|
| Contact Us : pitcrew@pitstopplanet.com | |||||||||
| |
Teams |
||||||||
All Rights Reserved © 2009. pitstopplanet.com |
|||||||||
