Walkinshaw Warns of Future F1 Job Cuts

Tom Walkinshaw, boss of the Arrows team, revealed in the paddock at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain on Friday that he has spoken to his team to assure them their jobs are safe but warned that there may be cuts in the future.

Arrows are one of the outfits struggling for survival at the lower end of the Grand Prix grid and the concern of his employees over their job security must have intensified since rival team Jordan announced a 15 percent staff cut this week.

But Walkinshaw insisted there are no imminent plans for change at the Leafield-based team and called for his team to push through the tough times to avoid forcing him to make job cuts in the future.

"I have still got the full team and that is just what I have told my people today," said Walkinshaw. "At the moment we have not (made job cuts) but everybody has got a business to run and I am sure Eddie will not be the last one to have to do that before the season is over."

When asked if he, himself, will be forced to wield the axe in the future, he added: "I don't know at the moment but, you know, everybody will review it as and when they need to.

"We are trying to keep everything up to the normal size, the normal structure and it is up to the staff to do a good job so we are able just to stay that way."

The top Grand Prix teams run on budgets of between 300 and 500 million dollars compared to the 70 or 80 million dollars Walkinshaw and the teams further down the grid are forced to work with.

The Arrows boss claims that half of the teams on the grid, including the apparently stable Sauber team, are having to make the sort of financial considerations that Jordan have been forced to deal with this week.

Calling budgets of 70 to 80 million dollars 'small', Walkinshaw angrily insisted, is "ludicrous" and he reiterated his warning that many of the team owners will begin to consider quitting the sport if such free spending at the top of the tree is allowed to continue.

"When you talk about small budgets, you are still talking of budgets that are 70 or 80 million dollars a year," said Walkinshaw. "It's ludicrous! Everybody says it is a small budget but has anybody any idea what it takes to earn that kind of money and then call it small?

"If you have got a chance of being competitive and getting there on sensible budgets people will participate (in Formula One). If you have not then I am sure people will review it and decide whether we want to put up with the aggro."