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FIA president Max Mosley is considering the possibility of imposing a budget cap on Formula One teams. Urging the teams to make further spending cuts amid the global economic crisis, Mosley acknowledged that a cap might be difficult to enforce but worth discussing with the Formula One Teams’ Association.
“The idea that each team should have the same amount of money, so that success is simply a function of intellectual ability, has great appeal,” Mosley wrote to the association’s president Luca di Montezemolo.
“If properly enforced, it would be a very fair system. Indeed one view is that having much more money than a rival team is just as unfair as having a bigger engine. We should like to discuss this further with FOTA.”
Mosley’s suggestion may be unpopular with teams such as Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber and Renault, which currently dominate the sport. However, it would allow smaller teams to make an impact and prevent others emulating Honda’s decision last month to quit.
The FIA president said he wants the budgets to be reduced to a level where the teams can operate profitably.
“This is the only way to safeguard the championship and allow new teams to enter to fill the gaps as well as replace those leaving,” Mosley wrote.
Saying that F1 faces an uncertain future, he initially called for major spending cuts last July before the global financial crisis took hold.
“Even before the current crisis, Formula One was not viable,” he wrote to Montezemolo, who is also president of the Ferrari team. “Costs have been so high that we have had vacancies in the championship for some time.
“Secondly, it is impossible to cut costs substantially without significant change. Inevitably, cherished projects, facilities and sadly, even people have to go.
“Thirdly, the fact of having recently invested in an expensive facility is not an argument for retaining it. That money has been spent. It’s gone. What we have to avoid is forcing others to spend the same money in order to keep up.”
Mosley also believes there should be an end to the use of technology that has no practical application outside of the sport.
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