FIA Have Never Favoured Ferrari, Says Mosley

Formula One's governing body have never favoured Ferrari and would be mad to do so after Michael Schumacher and the Italian team's recent domination of the sport, says FIA president Max Mosley.

"When Ferrari was losing...you could imagine people saying that for commercial reasons (Formula One supremo) Bernie Ecclestone and possibly the FIA would want to help them," he told the Guardian newspaper on Friday.

"But when it gets to the stage that their top driver is on the podium at every race for more than a season, and where people are switching off the television because of Ferrari, then anybody who believes that we are helping them must be mad because we would be sawing off the branch we're sitting on."

Ferrari won 15 of the 17 races last season and Schumacher won 11, finishing every Grand Prix on the podium.

"We've never been partial to Ferrari," added Mosley, who announced wide-ranging technical measures on Wednesday to cut costs and make racing more exciting. "The main basis for that accusation is the famous bargeboard case, where McLaren screwed up their case."

Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship in 1999 after an FIA appeal court overruled their disqualification from the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Italian team had finished one-two in the race, with Eddie Irvine leading Schumacher, but were disqualified when their aerodynamic side deflector was ruled to be illegal.

McLaren's Mika Hakkinen, who eventually won the title, was initially declared the winner but the appeal hearing reinstated the Ferrari drivers with a verdict that kept the Championship open to the final race in Japan.

"If McLaren had pressed the point properly, they would have won the case," said Mosley. "Had they asked Ferrari to prove that their deflector was at the correct angle, they couldn't possibly have done it because it had been removed from the car and the car wasn't in court. But they didn't make that point."