Zoom Mosley's plan still on course

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.

Daniel BASTIEN
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