Ferrari Mailing List: Ferrari may leave F1???

[pvb308 (pvb308]

Found this article in 5/1/09 issue of The British newspaper "Financial Times" 
   Jerry

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\f0\b\fs42 \cf0 F1 can live without Ferrari, says Mosley\
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\b0\fs22 \cf0 By James Allen and Roger Blitz in London\
Published: May 1 2009 23:30 | Last updated: May 1 2009 23:30\
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\fs26 \cf0 Max Mosley, the man driving the biggest change in the history of 
Formula One, took the fight to Ferrari \'96 which leads opposition to his 
radical budget cap plans \'96 by saying the sport could live without the 
presence of Formula One\'92s most successful and durable racing team.\
The president of the F\'e9d\'e9ration Internationale de l\'92Automobile, 
motorsport\'92s world governing body, this week stunned Ferrari and other 
big-spending teams by announcing a $40m cap on team expenditure from next year, 
a move that threatens Ferrari\'92s continued presence in a sport it has been 
involved in since 1950.\
But as Ferrari seeks to persuade rival teams to oppose the plans, Mr Mosley 
made clear in a Financial Times interview that he would face down the Italian 
F1 team\'92s objections.\
\'93The sport could survive without Ferrari,\'94 he said, acknowledging that 
its continuation in the sport could not be guaranteed. \'93It would be very, 
very sad to lose Ferrari. It is the Italian national team.\'94\
But Mr Mosley said the stakes were too high to contemplate compromise on his 
proposals, saying not going ahead would result in \'93the collapse of F1\'94.\
Mr Mosley said he doubted there was the resolve in the boards of the car 
manufacturers who back F1 teams to continue to pour money into them.\
\'93I hope and think that when a team goes to its board and says, \'91I want to 
go to war with the FIA, because I want to be able to spend \'a3100m more than 
the FIA want me to spend,\'92 then the board will say, \'91Why can\'92t you 
spend \'a340m if the other teams can do it?\'92\'94\
Max Mosley on Friday described his announcement of a L40m limit on F1 spending, 
starting next season, as \'93by far the biggest development in my time in the 
sport\'94.\
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\fs24 \cf0 \cb2 Asked what he thinks his legacy will be, 69-year-old Max Mosley 
shrugs his shoulders, 
\b writes Roger Blitz.
\b0  \'93I\'92m afraid I know what I\'92ll be remembered for \'96 the News of 
the World,\'94 he jokes. \'93That\'92s not quite true,\'94 he adds hastily.\
People know of Max Mosley for three reasons. He is the son of Oswald Mosley, 
leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. He has dominated the 
politics of motorsport and F1 for the best part of 20 years. And his private 
life became the centre of attention last year when the Sunday newspaper 
published claims that he had participated in a Nazi-themed orgy.\
Mr Mosley was awarded \'a360,000 by the High Court in a privacy case. Of more 
importance was the salvaging of his reputation, the damage to which threatened 
his continuation at the head of the FIA.\
The claims won him friends and enemies. \'93It flushed out a lot of people. 
When something like that happens, you find out who your friends are. What 
surprised me was the degree to which people support me. People would come up to 
me in the street. There was no doubt there was a feeling that they shouldn\'92t 
be allowed to do that. But in the motorsport community, most treated it as a 
joke. \'94\
He says he would like to be remembered for his contribution to road safety. But 
he says: \'93The focus is all on F1.\'94\
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\fs26 \cf0 \cb1 \
First as a constructor since 1969, then FIA president from 1991, he has been 
arguing for some time that F1 was reaching a critical moment, saying the costs 
of manufacturer teams \'96 some spending more than \'a3200m a season \'96 were 
unsustainable.\
The credit crunch and the withdrawal of, the Japanese car manufacturer, in 
December sparked fears that more teams might follow suit.\
For Mr Mosley, cost-cutting ideas put forward by the teams themselves neither 
went far enough nor encouraged innovative engineering for the long-term benefit 
of the motor industry.\
The budget cap proposal, announced on Thursday, pleases the five independent 
teams, including Williams and championship leaders Brawn GP, and increases the 
likelihood of new entrants.\
However, it has outraged the five manufacturer teams, none more so than Ferrari 
whose 60-year involvement in the sport could be under threat.\
At a lunch with the FT in London, Mr Mosley, who has survived efforts to oust 
him over revelations about his private life, acknowledged that Ferrari may well 
lead some of the other teams into a full-blown war with the FIA, threatening 
disruption of the F1 racing calendar.\
But many in the sport know that Mr Mosley would not have set out his stall for 
what amounts to a revolution in F1 if he was not supremely confident of pulling 
it off.\
\'93We\'92ve got very little room to negotiate,\'94 he says, \'93but the 
message I\'92m getting from the board of two or three of the manufacturers is: 
\'91If you can get it so that the cheque we write is not more than \'8025m 
(\'a322.3m), you can consider this a pretty permanent arrangement.\'92\'94\
In recent years, manufacturer-backed teams, such as Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, 
have fuelled an arms race of costs to gain competitive advantage on the track. 
But according to Mr Mosley, the economic downturn is prompting boards to take a 
different view.\
\'93We have contacts with the boards other than through the teams. The teams 
spin to the board. The chief executive hasn\'92t got the time, knowledge or 
expertise to question it. But now, because they are all [short of money], to 
throw away tens of millions on F1 is not acceptable.\'94\
F1 has benefited from the amount of money it attracts, but in some ways it has 
suffered, Mr Mosley admits, and that is partly down to the FIA.\
\'93It\'92s our fault, allowing the sport to develop where refinement was the 
means of progress rather than innovation,\'94 he says. F1 should continue to 
attract money, he says, \'93but we must plan for the possibility that it 
won\'92t\'94.\
He also agrees that the budget cap, aimed solely at the development of cars, 
may drive more money into the hands of handsomely-paid drivers. But the car is 
\'93probably more important than the driver\'94, he claims, and if teams have 
greater technical freedom, \'93maybe the driver won\'92t be that vital\'94.\
The budget cap may have been introduced at a time of crisis in the motor 
industry and the financial sector, big backers of the sport, but Mr Mosley is 
adamant this is no temporary quick fix.\
\'93I believe that the cost cap is here to stay,\'94 he says.\
\'93There is room for discussion, it might go up or down in 2011 and if the 
economy picks up, say in 2014, then it might go up. You might adjust the cap in 
the interests of the sport, but you\'92ll have everyone on a level playing 
field.\
\'93The credit crunch hasn\'92t really hit F1 yet. Obviously we lost Honda, but 
the real crunch will come when current [sponsorship] contracts come to be 
renewed.\
\'93At the moment, you see ING, RBS, Allianz, big sponsors, but they 
wouldn\'92t be there this year if they didn\'92t have a binding contract.\
\'93Those contracts were signed before their share prices took a dump. I 
believe FOM [Formula One Management, the commercial rights holder of F1] will 
not be able to give the teams as much money as they have.\'94\
One of Ferrari\'92s principal objections to the budget cap is that the FIA will 
be incapable of policing it with its team of forensic accountants.\
Ferrari believes that teams will find ways to cheat the system and doubt the 
ability of the FIA to provide a level playing field.\
Mr Mosley acknowledges the budget cap may not be perfect, that \'93there are 
going to be grey areas\'94. But the FIA will do a better job policing its 
budget cap than the Revenue does finding tax avoidance, he says.\
\'93The Revenue can\'92t put even one tax inspector into each business on a 
permanent basis. We can, we can put several in. The difficulty and danger of 
cheating would be enormous. If we had the slightest suspicion that anyone was 
cheating, we\'92d send a team in to check. That\'92s part of the deal.\'94\
Mr Mosley continues to claim that he is unsure about standing again for 
re-election as FIA president later this summer, while at the same time giving 
every impression that he will.\
He has no doubt that CVC, the venture capital company that owns FOM and runs F1 
with commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, will continue to do so.\
\'93I think they are probably there for the long term. People keep speculating 
on them selling but I don\'92t think they are going to.\'94\
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