Ferrari Respond to Rivals

Ferrari do not believe the purpose of yesterday's proposal is to cut costs and have attacked the integrity of the Formula One teams in the way they have handled the proposal to reduce testing and introduce controlled tyre.

Ferrari's press officer, Luca Colajanni, briefed the Italian journalists at Interlagos, ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix. According to Colajanni, the team's sporting director Jean Todt stated that "it's remarkable the teams could have a meeting of this nature without inviting all teams or even advising that the meeting is going to take place" - reiterating speculations that Ferrari were not invited to yesterday's crucial meeting.

Todt, according to Colajanni, said he also finds it remarkable that "certain teams" have obviously voted for this cost savings initiative, but would appear to have voted the opposite at the F1 commission. He also finds it remarkable that the FIA was not invited, even though president Max Mosley is present in Brazil.

Colajanni told the reporters that on Friday, when the issue of single tyre supplier came up, Ferrari made it clear that they could not see a situation where either Bridgestone or Michelin would willingly leave the sport, and Ferrari would never marginalise a major partner like Bridgestone.

Furthermore, the proposed suggestions regarding engines were not very clear and Todt doesn't think that all teams would agree to it.

Colajanni said Todt reiterated that Ferrari is fully in favour of any cost reduction exercises and this has been their stance since the meeting on May 4th in Monaco. But he emphasised that a testing reduction would not help financially the small teams, because they have not used the allocation of test days this year in any event and would therefore incur the same costs with testing restrictions.

This point specifically suggests Ferrari believe the initiative yesterday is aimed at crippling Ferrari's advantage rather than helping the smaller teams save money, and Todt said he finds it remarkable that there was no discussion about the teams receiving increased revenues.

Todt also rebuffed suggestions that the future of the British and French Grands Prix are at stake because of Ferrari and asked how can the teams decide or know that Silverstone and France are the 18th and 19th races, and therefore are the two that should be in danger?

He stated that Ferrari would never do anything to jeopardise the historic Grands Prix and reminded all that the Concorde Agreement allows for more than 17 races if all teams agree. Therefore, the Frenchman said he doesn't understand why the teams can't just agree to have more than 17 races, why the need for this initiative in order to get the French and British Grand Prix take place next year.