Ecclestone calls for more cost-cutting

There have been a few changes to Formula One with the aim of reducing financial overheads but Bernie Ecclestone wants to see more cost-cutting. Ecclestone believes something must be done to not only help the smaller teams, but also to prevent any manufacturers that partner top teams deciding they have spent too much money and quit the sport.

"We've got to reduce the costs dramatically, for the survival of Formula One," Ecclestone told Australian media. "If we don't reduce the costs dramatically, the people that are currently at the top in Formula One -- and spending all the money -- may say 'listen, we've spent enough and we're leaving'."

Ecclestone thinks the current situation with some teams being dominant at the top is usual and the only way to stop that continuing is to find a way for small teams to catch up.

"I have been around Formula One for a long time now, and there have never been more than three or four really competitive teams in any one year, so it's about normal. We've got now, I think, four very, very strong teams."

"Could we change that? The only way you will ever change it is to find a way to drastically reduce the costs in order that the people at the back end of the grid can catch up. At the moment, the amount that the teams spend is so vastly different that it wouldn't be possible for someone that's got a budget like the Jordans of this world to ever, ever be able to compete with McLaren."

Ecclestone's theory is that it would be easier to bring the top teams down to the financial level of the lesser ones, as it's unlikely back-of-the-grid teams could ever compete with the front runners where money is concerned. The big teams will spend as much as much as they can in order to win and the small teams simply can't match that kind of budget.

A reduction in engine power is Ecclestone's solution: "These guys, the top teams, are in excess of 900 horsepower now -- but does anybody need 900 horsepower? The answer is no," was his opinion.

"The TV audience hasn't changed from when we had 700 horsepower. So, the obvious thing to do is to reduce the power, but how would you do that and keep all the technology that we currently have? Chop away a few litres, I suppose."

"People have been talking about this now for two or three years, but I think now we've got a single engine (per race weekend), and possibly we are going to have Max (Mosley) wanting to go to three races with one engine. I'm not so sure I go along with that but, maybe, now is the time to have a change and see what power 2.5 litres can produce and whether they get the job done. I don't think the public care."