Ecclestone Issues Threat on FIA

Ecclestone's battle in Formula 1 is not only with the F1 teams – following the latest discussions concerning the prospect of higher revenues for F1 outfits – but also with FIA president Max Mosley. Following the FIA president taking the side of the F1 teams in the aforementioned “battle for money”, the F1 supreme slammed such a request, insisting that no team in the F1 paddock will receive more money than before.

“We don't need to pay more. We've got to give them less. In what I call the good old days, all we had to do was have a chat with the people who had all the money... but now they come along and they've got lawyers and masseurs and they can never agree on anything. They could ask for more money but they won't get it,” said Ecclestone, according to the Financial Times.

Also, Mosley stood against the much-acclaimed-by-Ecclestone proposal to switch from the existing point system to a medal-based format. The FIA president argued that this will not make the sport more attractive and insisted that F1 fans should be asked about it first, if implemented.

“We don't want to ask the public what they think because, if we do we would have to ask the public about almost every little thing that is decided on. The sporting regulations basically are what generate the income and we run the commercial business. The FIA should just be the police looking at the rules. The teams and us should be writing the technical and sporting regulations,” argued Ecclestone in an interview for the Daily Express.

He also suggested that FIA should take Formula 1 more seriously and do everything they can to avoid a financial collapse of the “pinnacle of motorsport” because “without us there wouldn't be a FIA.”