Max: F1 won't survive unless costs are cut

Wednesday 8th October 2008

FIA President Max Mosley has warned that Formula One may only survive one more year if it does not introduce dramatic spending cuts.

Mosley, who will stand down from his role next year, admitted he is worried for the future of the sport due to the spiralling costs associated with running a team.

He insisted that the sport could not afford to survive on billionaires' handouts and must become more cost-effective if it is to survive.

The Super Aguri team dropped out of this season's championship following the Spanish Grand Prix due to a lack of funds and Mosley fears at least two more teams may also have to withdraw from the Championship.

"I think it would put the sport in an unsustainable position if we lost two more teams," Mosley told BBC Sport.

"At the moment we have 20 cars competing and if we lost two teams we'd have 16 and then it would cease to be a credible grid.

"Some of the manufacturers are already having difficulty if you look at their share prices. The days that they could throw 200 Euros or 300 Euros are long gone."

"This hasn't been prompted by the credit crunch. This is something I have been campaigning for for two or three years.

"It had become apparent long before the present economic difficulties that Formula One is unsustainable.

"If we can't get this sorted out by 2010 we will be in serious difficulty. We can survive through 2009, but I'm not to sure about after.

"You cannot run a business like that when the outgoings are two to three times than what's coming in. It now depends on billionaires subsidising teams."

Mosley said simple cost-cutting measures would help the sport survive, even with the enormous financial clout that Ferrari, McLaren and BMW are able to wield over their competitors.

"There are various things we can do. The most obvious one would be to reduce the cost of the car," he said.

"The engine and gearbox costs about �25million a year and that could be done for probably five percent of that cost without anyone in the grandstand noticing at all.

"We have various means of making sure the big spenders don't spend so much, but that would mean some draconian measures."

Your Comments

dezbo1960

"then maybe he and bernie could drop the charges they make on circuits to show a grand prix would help, not satisfied with earning millions they have the balls to say it's needing cuts to be made, by the teams, showe some respect you robbing old fart, cut your costs, then again bdsm is rather expensive nowadays"

macahan

"F1_Freak_666 I do believe that this will not be the case since some cars works better on certain circuits then others. There are some tracks that worked for example very well for BMW and some the that didn't work well. Same thing with for example Ferrari they generally do not like Monacco for example. Since the different tracks requires different down force levels and some mechanical grip is more important then others and this will mean that one car might work well on one kind of track but not as well on a different track. This means that the development phase of a car gets even more critical of course and if a team really screws up then they will have to hope for luck with SC periods and weather. But this way also they can completely concentrate the entire season on developing next years car and you don't run into problems with the smallers teams that can not afford to develop two cars (this years and next years) at the same time. Some of the smaller teams have already stopped development of this years car and bigger teams still develop both at great expense and time crunch. Maybe allow them to do development of this years car for the first 6 or so races but not more and limit how much changes can be done. As is rich teams can afford to develop their already good car far longer then the smaller teams. "

madtpot

"F1 wont survive...

I'll say this:

It wont survive without a fan base! I'm sick of the inconstancy and I know I'm not alone.

It won't survive when you are (perceived to be?) biased towards red cars...

It won't survive if you get rid of all the classic race tracks and replace them with airport wide strips of tarmac...

Please, stop making a mockery of a sport I have grown up with since I was 8 years old... (over 30 now) or it won't survive and it will all be max von mosleys fault!"

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