Planet-F1

Todt: High costs F1's No 1 challenge

Wednesday 26th March 2008

Former Ferrari team boss Jean Todt has urged Formula One role players to do more to reduce the high costs in the sport.

There have been calls for a budget cap in F1 in an attempt to keep the costs in check. FIA President Max Mosley is one of those in favour of the cap and he has hinted that it might be introduced by the start of 2009.

"Definitely the cost of Formula One is very high," Todt was quoted by Autosport.

"We cannot ignore there's an economic crisis in the world at the moment and you can see the prices of shares and all that.

"If a company wants to be in F1 it's because the costs are acceptable and it's worth being here. So even if the increase of the costs has dramatically slowed over the last three or four years it's still very expensive and Max has worked very hard with the support of the teams. That's the number one challenge.

"And then we need to make sure the regulations are suitable to the business because sometimes some regulations did not give the results people expected. But it's going in the right direction."