Mosley: Carmakers' Excessive Spending Hurts F1

FIA president Max Mosley has fired a salvo at Formula One carmakers in the wake of Ford's decision to quit the sport, accusing some of damaging the sport by throwing money at it.

Mosley told reporters at the Chinese Grand Prix that he was not surprised by Ford's decision to withdraw and sell its Jaguar team and engine maker Cosworth. He said, however, that what had happened justified his repeated warnings that, while welcome in the sport, manufacturers were transient and the smaller independent teams must be protected.

Ford's return for the hundreds of millions spent on Jaguar, more in the early days than now, has been two third-place finishes since 2000.

Cosworth supplied Jordan and Minardi with engines as well as Jaguar and the two smaller teams now face an uncertain future.

"Even the most introspective Formula One team principal must be beginning to realise that there are a few problems," said Mosley, who is at odds with some of the carmakers over rule changes from next season.

"Manufacturers come when it suits them and go when it suits them. Formula One is not a manufacturer's core business. Formula One is Eddie Jordan's core business, not Ford's core business, and if we want to be sure we've got people around we've got to think of the Eddie Jordans and Paul Stoddarts and [Peter] Saubers.

"Recently they (the manufacturers) have tended to pour money in, in a way that I think actually damages the sport," continued Mosley, a co-founder of the now-defunct Ford-powered March team in the 1970s. "When you see the boss of a big company on the pit wall, with the headphones and a silly jacket you know that there's trouble because they are doing at 60 what we all did at 30.

"And the difference is that they are running a huge company and when we wanted the wonderful new gearbox...we had to go to the bank and the bank manager wouldn't lend us the money. But they are sitting at the top of a huge company and they can just write out a cheque.

"And that's fine for a year or two or three but eventually somebody else in that big company says, 'Hang on a minute, this is completely and utterly mad. What we are spending here is a huge proportion of our entire publicity budget. And you haven't won any races.

"'And by the way, that engine you're spending 200 million euros on - it blew up in front of a world television audience.' If you're a sensible person looking after the money of that company, you're going to say no," said Mosley.

"And then sooner or later, they stop. It's all just so obvious and inevitable."