FIA may abandon cost cutting plans

It seems that FIA President Max Mosley is once again getting fed up with the lack of decision making between the teams and has said the FIA could abandon its efforts to cut costs in F1. Only Ferrari turned up at a meeting at the end of January to discuss financial reductions in the sport; the other teams had wanted to postpone until mid-way through the season. When Mosley declined to delay those teams declined to turn up.

Max Mosley.

Photo by Brousseau Photo.

In continuing correspondence with Minardi team principal Paul Stoddart, which the FIA has chosen to make public, Mosley said he believes that the teams are no longer concerned about cutting costs. "Had the teams been interested in the general question of costs, they would have come to the meeting of 28 January," he said.

Further meetings between the team managers and the Technical Working Group (TWG) in early February "made it clear that the teams which failed to attend the 28 January meeting did so because they do not wish to discuss cost reduction with the FIA," Mosley added.

Mosley remarked that it was perhaps understandable that cost cutting was not such an urgent topic now that Jordan and Red Bull (formerly Jaguar), the two teams whose futures were the most unstable, have been taken over. "This may be the reason why most of the teams seem unconcerned either by current costs or even probably future costs," he commented.

"There are now those in the FIA who question whether further time and effort should be extended in seeking cost reduction in Formula One. The matter will be discussed by the World Motor Sport Council next month and may well result in the abandonment of these efforts unless or until there is a financial crisis in Formula One of the kind which appeared imminent last autumn."

At the start of this latest communication with Stoddart, Mosley commented that the Minardi boss was "extremely fortunate" to have the time to send such lengthy letters. He ended his own letter by making it clear that further discussions on the subject would not be forthcoming. "I regret that I have not got time to continue this correspondence which must now be considered closed," he concluded.

Mosley is evidently exasperated with the whole thing and it's not the first time he's expressed his irritation about the lack of decision making. Last year he announced he intended to resign his post because he was sick and tired of the endless meetings that never solved anything. He later retracted his resignation under pressure from the FIA Senate.