Ferrari snubs team meeting
Ferrari has announced that it will not attend the scheduled meeting of Formula 1 team bosses at the Hilton Hotel at Heathrow on Tuesday claiming it has "previous commitments"
The meeting was arranged to discuss plans to cut costs, including the slashing of testing to just 10 days during the season. The proposal was signed at the Brazilian Grand Prix by all the teams, except Ferrari, who weren't invited to the meeting.
"We will not be there," a Ferrari spokesman told Reuters. "This date was not available to us due to previous commitments."
Ferrari are unsupportive of any new regulations that would restrict testing for they have their own private tracks in Italy. Team boss Jean Todt, whose signature is required in order for cost-cutting proposals put forward by the other teams over the Brazilian weekend to become unanimous, expressed reservations on the issue. Click HERE for separate story. The Frenchman believes that there are considerations that have not been addressed by the agreement.
"Let's look at the detail: We wanted to go to one engine for two GPs in order to reduce performance and cost, moving from a life of 700kms to one of around 1400kms," he said. "In the statement put out on Saturday (of the Brazilian Grand Prix) it is not clear whether the engine to be used in the four hours of free practice on Friday is the one that has to be used on Saturday and Sunday.
"The proposal to restrict private testing will in no way help the smaller teams who currently do not use all the days of testing available to them under the current agreement. Finally, I'm amazed that despite the major players involved in this proposal, there is not the slightest mention of increasing income."
Minardi boss Paul Stoddart, who has been a key player in pushing forward with the cost-cutting proposals, said Tuesday's meeting would still go ahead with or without the world champions.
"We're very hopeful we can move on from where we left off in Brazil," he told Reuters. "The next stage is Ferrari signing up or the rest of us agree to do it without them. We can't do anything about tyres but we can just decide we're not going to test more than 10 days."
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