FOTA lobs F1 crisis into Mosley’s court

Mon, 1 June 2009, 12:00

Jun.1 (GMM) After a weekend of speculation, the ball is now squarely in Max Mosley’s court as the battle over budget caps continues

Some sections of the media saw the FOTA teams’ conditional entries for the 2010 world championship as the easing of their threats to quit the sport

In fact, the crisis arguably deepened, with Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali clarifying that if the proposed budget cap rules are not binned, “the entries from the nine teams will be invalid”

The Italian team’s driver Felipe Massa told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag: “We will have to wait and see how the FIA reacts.”nnSimilarly, the Italian newspaper Tuttosport observed: “Mosley will either accept the teams’ stipulations, or he will not.”nnThe official line is that in the wake of Williams’ suspension, all the remaining FOTA teams are united in their opposition to the plans

But Force India’s Adrian Sutil pointed out that the dilemma belongs almost exclusively to the big-spending teams

Asked about budget caps, he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport: “Generally I think it’s a good idea

“I don’t think we would have to change too much within our team. We would probably keep most of our people and keep doing our work as before.”nnSutil added: “For the big teams it is going to be very difficult for them to get along with a tenth of their money.”n

You may also like