The teams have asked for a complete scrap of the budget cap concept from the F1 rule book, while forwarding Mosley their own solutions on how to further decrease costs inside the sport. The 69-year old Englishman doesn't seem too keen on going over the FOTA-proposed solutions however, as he previously characterized it as being totally “unrealistic”. So his response to it was really no news.
“We now have a conflict and we will see who succeeds in the end. I say to them: If you want to draw up your own rules, then you can organize your own championship. But we have the Formula 1 championship,” said Mosley in an interview with Swiss magazine Motorsport Aktuell.
This is not the first time Mosley threatens the Formula One teams with the exclusion from the series, as he previously stated – quite ironically, we might add – that he'd have no problem with the championship “big guns” setting up their own series, parallel to F1. He even said the FIA would be happy to draw the safety guidelines for such an alternative series, but warned them that they might have a problem with promoting their competition.
“If they did a breakaway, they could write their own rules and we would check them over for safety. Then, they would go off and negotiate with promoters and television companies, who would no doubt charge them a great deal of money as they would be there for marketing purposes. And rumor has it, when they went to negotiate with the promoters they would find Bernie on the other side of the table! I don't know if there is anything in that, but it is just a suggestion...” said Mosley for British magazine Autosport two weeks ago.
As it has surfaced earlier this week, it seems the FIA are already covered for teams for the 2010 season, as 10 outfits have already submitted their applications for an F1 entry. In case the FOTA teams will decide not to take part in next year's championship, 20 cars (plus the two of Williams F1's) are ready to make the field in 2010.
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