Formula 1 News

Ferrari loses legal bid over FIA’s budget cap 

The French legal authorities (Tribunal de Grande Instance) have ruled that Scuderia Ferrari didn’t have a valid reason to block the FIA’s plan for a £40 million budget cap to teams starting from the 2010 season.

The Maranello based team had lodged last week an injunction against the FIA claiming that F1′s governing body plans for the much discussed budget cap were in breach of a technical veto that the team has over future technical rule changes.

The Italian team has already announced that unless next year’s budget cap rules get changed, they will not enter the 2010 Formula One world championship.

And just a few minutes prior to the Tribunal de Grande Instance announcement, Ferrari had criticised heavily the quality of the eight teams looking to enter Formula 1 next year suggesting that F1 should be called Formula GP3.

A team notice on Ferrari’s official website read:

“They couldn’t almost believe their eyes, the men at women working at Ferrari, when they read the papers this morning and found the names of the teams, declaring that they have the intention to race in Formula 1 in the next year. Looking at the list, which leaked yesterday from Paris, you can’t find a very famous name, one of those one has to spend 400 Euros per person for a place on the grandstand at a GP plus the expenses for the journey and the stay…”

“Wirth Research, Lola, USF1, Epsilon Euskadi, RML, Formtech, Campos, iSport: these are the names of the teams, which should compete in the two-tier Formula 1 wanted by Mosley. Can a World Championship with teams like them – with due respect – can have the same value as today’s Formula 1, where Ferrari, the big car manufacturers and teams, who created the history of this sport, compete? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call it Formula GP3?”