Carmakers Must Save Small Teams, Says Mosley

Formula One carmakers have lost touch with economic reality and should club together to help save smaller teams and the future of the sport, says FIA president Max Mosley.

"They (the manufacturer-backed teams) live in that paddock and they spend money like you can't believe and I think they are out of touch with reality," Mosley said at the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday.

"There is only one car manufacturer in Europe making money at the moment...and here nobody seems to take any notice," he said in an interview. "Every year there's a bigger motor home, a bigger jet, more money is spent and it's not realistic. Sooner or later the realities of business, of economic life have got to get into the Formula One paddock.

"It would be good if we could do it in a painless way and not a very painful one," added Mosley.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) president said the manufacturers must make affordable engines available to the struggling independent teams.

Alternatively, he suggested they should each pay millions of dollars into a central pool as an effective subsidy to enable the three small teams to buy engines at commercial rates and stay in business.

The non-manufacturer teams are Jordan, Minardi and Sauber and Mosley painted a picture of next season possibly starting without two of them unless immediate action was taken.

"If something is not done quickly then it would be very surprising if we have got all 10 teams at the beginning of next season," he said.

Affordable Engines

The FIA agreed this month that traction control systems could stay in Formula One next year, because of the cost of replacing them, if manufacturers made affordable engines available to all teams. A price of $10 million has been mentioned but several carmakers have said that price is unrealistic.

While Mercedes have made supportive noises, but questioned the cost, Renault and Toyota are among those to have ruled out supplying anyone else in 2004.

"Our position is that we would like to have the engines inexpensive but if they are not going to be forthcoming there is no reason not to insist on the banning of traction control," said Mosley. "Traction control is not good for the sport and the drivers should drive without it."

Mosley said that if more small teams followed Prost and Arrows out of business, the manufacturers would pay a heavy price and the sport could be in danger of collapse.

"If they don't help the small teams, the small teams will disappear," he said. "If the small teams disappear, the big teams will have to run three cars...for four teams to run three cars will cost a fortune, far more than a few million dollars."

Mosley said that if one manufacturer then decided to withdraw because of the cost, the sport would face a crisis although there were provisions for Formula 3000 teams to make up the grid if numbers fell below 16 cars.