Dennis: Warning shot at smaller teams

Dennis' comments come in the wake of the row over the acquisition of Prost Grand Prix's assets between Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw and Minardi's Paul Stoddart.

Although Stoddart claims that his opposition to Walkinshaw's involvement in the purchase of the remnants of the defunct French team is not driven by a vested interest, other paddock sources have suggested otherwise.

They say that the Australian is miffed because he believed Minardi, which missed out on a share of the TV revenues/travel subsidy by finishing 11th in the constructors' championship last year, stood to be promoted to 10th and thus receive the share that would have gone to Prost.

Dennis, however, said: "Concerning the distribution of finance, the regulations are specific: if you're 11th there's no set of circumstances which can make you 10th. It's explicit in the Concorde Agreement that if a team goes insolvent and misses one event, all it's rights fall away. If someone creates a new company, it is just that -- a new company. I am constantly frustrated by people not being diligent in the preparation of some of the things they say.

"Formula 1 is massively competitive. It has always been. It is always being driven by a range of fiscal, technical and commercial views and pressures. And most of it is pretty transparent. At least transparent enough to look at and say: if I'm getting into this kitchen I've got to be able to take the heat. If you can't, get out. This is an expensive, highly financed, highly technical business and you are not going to do it with a tenth of the budget of a top team. And if you try to and then start whinging, then you shouldn't have come into it in the first place."

Dennis claimed that the whole structure was designed to kill off the weak, rather like a football league system where the weakest teams are relegated.

"Eddie Jordan came in with his green 7-Up cars and started earning money. And, since the 1997 Concorde Agreement [the document by which F1 is governed], the 10th placed team in the championship has received 50 percent of the financial benefit of the guy that wins it. In the circumstances, I think that's amazingly democratic. When I started F1 that ratio was more like 10%. What you get paid should reflect your performance, and who gets paid for failure?"