Stoddart Warns of Departure Due to Spiralling Costs

Minardi team principal Paul Stoddart warned on Friday that his low-budget operation will not continue in Grand Prix racing unless costs are kept under control.

The 11 team chiefs met with Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone in the paddock at the A1-Ring in Austria to discuss the financial problems affecting Formula One.

Prior to the meeting, Australian Stoddart insisted something must be done to prevent him and his fellow 'privateers' Tom Walkinshaw, of Arrows, and Eddie Jordan, being forced out of the sport.

"There are definitely three teams that will not be here next year unless something is done," said Stoddart. "I will put them in order: Arrows, Minardi and Jordan. Eddie will not compete next year under the same circumstances, I won't compete next year without a full budget, and Arrows won't compete.

"Whether that extends to the other two teams that are not manufacturer backed, that is Sauber and BAR (British American Racing), one would argue that they both have such strong sponsorship that they should continue.

"Our sponsorship deals for next year are not in place yet, there are discussions but they are not actually firmly in place," he said. Minardi's main sponsor this year is Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Too Slow

The team principals have already met several times this year, including three meetings at the Malaysian Grand Prix in March, to discuss possible plans for testing cuts and alterations to the format of race weekends. They failed to reach any satisfactory conclusion, however, and discussions were said to be "going round in circles".

A unanimous decision is required from the 11 owners for any changes to take place and any cost-cutting measures to be brought in. The sport's governing body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), has already agreed plans for teams to be limited to just one engine per car per race weekend from 2004.

But Stoddart said that more was needed.

"I said in October last year that if we don't control the costs in Formula One they will control us," he said. "Not a lot has happened since then, apart from the very welcome news on the engines. But that doesn't give an immediate benefit to the small teams who need it now. We don't need it next year or the year after, we need it now."

The meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, calmed some team bosses' concerns over the future of Formula One.

BAR team chief David Richards hailed it a "great meeting" and revealed an agenda had already been set for them to reconvene within the next two weeks. But he said the meeting was more about optimising the potential of Formula One than reducing the budgets involved.

"We should all be talking the sport up not thinking doom and gloom. There are one or two people in the paddock who are looking at their own circumstances, but it is not about cost cutting it is about making the sport better value for everybody," he said.

"It is very easy to portray something as a negative when only a very slight shift makes it become a positive. It is not like the situation in football at the moment - who would want to be in that?"