Formula One World Looks to Avoid the Crisis
By Emeli Dean
The International Automobile Federation, FIA, has announced a new regulation for the Formula One season in 2010. After an extraordinary meeting last Wednesday April 29, 2009, the association had decided to establish a budget limit for the expenses of each team. The regulation will proceed initially on a voluntary basis, where the teams who submit themselves to this will have several advantages on regards to the development of the mechanics and techniques on their cars, for example they will be permitted to equip their cars with a motor without an overspeed trip unit. Besides they will be able to realize unlimited test drives beyond the season.
The world association aims to decrease the general costs in order to achieve more stability and equality amongst each team. On the other hand, the FIA hopes that there will be new teams that might become interested in the highest class of auto racing. At this time there are already several racing car engineering companies that show interest, such as the Lola Cars International Ltd. which is based in England, and a couple of teams that are now integrated in the lower class GP2 which would like to ascend.
At first there was a talk of around 33 million Euros but at the end the limit was settled on 44 million Euros for the budget. Expenses such as salaries or costs for marketing works are not included in this limit. Another regulation for the next season to lower the costs in the Formula One will be the prohibition of refueling during the race. In this way the FIA wants to motivate each team to develop new motors which are less fuel consuming. This would be good for the teams to save money and at the same time it would have a positive effect on the environment. The whole issue is supposed to be controlled strictly by a previously selected commission.
The teams must decide until latest May 29th this year if they want to drive under the circumstances of this new regulation or if they prefer to keep using their own budget limit. FIA president Max Mosley sees this development as a must: “If we don’t act now, we would lose a lot of teams. We cannot hope for better times. The matter is urgent and does not tolerate any postponement”, stated the 69-year-old British man.
After McLaren Mercedes as one of the most successful teams in the Formula One history is already being criticized due to the “lying affair” and their future is not sure yet, now Ferrari sees the Formula One in danger as well. The president of Ferrari and the team association FOTA, Luca di Montezemolo, thinks that the establishment of a budget limit will split the Formula One in two and will affect the sport in a negative way.
He is mostly upset with the progress and the origin of the issue. He did not attend the extraordinary meeting and says that the topic of a budget limit was not even item of the agenda and that FIA insert it at the last minute. The Italian will not just accept the decision without further ado. He is planning a meeting of the FOTA in which he wants to try to win the rest of the teams over and convince them with his opinion. Ferrari does still see a chance to reverse the new regulation since they are the only team that has a veto.
We will see how the situation will develop and we hope that the sport will soon take the center stage again, because we agree with the opinion from the president of the Mercedes-Benz motorsport, Norbert Haug, who said in an interview: “We love the sport on the track much more than the negotiations next to it.” After the teams’ “lying affaire” they hope for a soon recovery and want to leave the whole issue behind as soon as possible so they can shine again.
About the author
Emeli Dean provides current Formula One Championship articles as well as information in the sports betting industry. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.