A picture of FIA president Max Mosley confirmed Friday that the two-tier system has been abandoned. FIA president Max Mosley confirmed on Friday that the FIA's plans for a two-tier system to help teams running to the proposed 2010 "cost cap" rules have been abandoned--on the basis that all existing teams agree to run under the 40 million pounds ($60 million) cap.
The second part of the deal was not finalized in the meeting in London between Mosley and the Formula One Teams Association, and the teams will meet again next Friday in Monaco to discuss alternative ways of satisfying the FIA. It seems that if none can be found, the FIA will continue to force through adoption of the 40 million pounds cap.
"I think we're all agreed now it's desirable that everybody races under the same regulations, I think there's no difficulty about that," Mosley said in a BBC TV interview. "That became necessary once some of the existing teams wanted to race under the budget cap. The original idea was that new teams coming in would probably end up as mobile chicanes--much too slow--if we didn't give them some assistance.
"Now that other existing teams want to come in under the budget cap, obviously they would then have far too big an advantage. So we'll find another way of closing the gap by an exchange of technical information. But yes, all under one [set of] regulations."
The FIA president confirmed that the teams are seeking an alternative to the cap.
"The principal of an enormous reduction in costs has certainly been accepted. The teams are really saying now [that they] think [they] can come up with a better way of doing this than having a budget cap. We said, 'That's very pleasing to hear, what have you got in mind?' 'Well, we're not quite sure, but we want to talk about it.'
"I said to them [that] I think it will be very difficult to improve on a budget cap, because it's something that everybody can understand, it's a level playing field, and the cleverest team is going to win. Because everybody has the same amount of money, it's just who can do the best job with that money. If they could think of something better, obviously we'd have to look at it. But I'm very skeptical."
He said once again that the sport could live without Ferrari.
"The truth of it is Formula One without Ferrari is not as good as Formula One with Ferrari. But it will still be Formula One, and it would work perfectly well. It would just be very sad to lose them. But the moment we were to say, 'Well, we can't function without Ferrari,' it would mean that they could dictate all the rules. Well, we can't have that."
Mosley's aim with Ferrari is to "try to get them to understand that they are fully capable of competing with the other teams even if they've only got the same money as the other teams. They've got some very clever, talented people. They don't need to spend two or three times as much as everybody else to compete, but they need to come to terms with that."
He then warned that any current team not lodging an entry for next year's championship by May 29 might be squeezed out by an influx of new teams.
"Well, I think what would happen is that the team that was left outside when the music stopped, and there was no seat, they'd probably have to buy one of the small teams or something. They should think about that before they don't put an entry in."
Mosley did not rule out the possibility of the manufacturer-backed teams forming a breakaway championship.
"It could happen, they could run their own series, absolutely," he said. "But I don't think it would succeed."
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