Mosley Predicts 20-Car Grid for 2003

FIA president Max Mosley says the 2003 Formula One grid is likely to be shortened to 20 cars due to the financial problems of some of the current Grand Prix teams.

Sources close to the International Automobile Federation (FIA) said last week that the 10 teams who competed in the 2002 Championship had all submitted their entries for the 2003 season before the November 15 deadline.

The struggling Arrows team, who missed the last five races of the year, also said they had submitted their entry despite not having yet completed a rescue deal with a Germany-based group.

Despite all the entries, however, Mosley warned that the field could be reduced to ten teams next year.

"It would be nice to have 22 cars," Mosley said at the launch of the 2003 Australian Grand Prix today. "I think 20 is more probable as the number, not necessarily because they are Arrows, but because there are another team or two that are not 100 hundred per cent in good shape, but we are just keeping our fingers crossed that they will all be there in March."

Formula One will undergo some radical changes next season in order to bring back the missing excitement that has seen the watching figures take a slump in the past season. Other changes, like allowing the teams to test on the Fridays of each Grand Prix, are aimed at reducing costs.

Mosley said that unless the costs are reduced even further, it is unlikely that Formula One will see a new manufacturer entering the sport.

"I think we may see other manufacturers coming in, but I think that depends very much on getting the costs down," he said. "We've not been as successful as I would like us to have been at getting down the costs. The problem has been to get agreement among the teams.

"If it goes on getting more and more expensive, then I think manufacturers that are not currently in it will be inclined to say it's perhaps not as good value as they would like and maybe even one or two manufacturers that are in it might stop.

"So I'm keeping the pressure on all the time on the teams to do a large number of things which could be done which wouldn't interfere with the spectacle, or the sporting contest, at all but would make it significantly cheaper."