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Tuesday June 23, 2009

I will not let Formula One collapse, says Ecclestone

LONDON: Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone said yesterday he was not prepared to see the sport collapse in the face of the breakaway movement from eight F1 teams.

“I have given 35 years of my life and more to F1. My marriage broke up because of F1, so I am sure as hell not going to let things disintegrate over what is, in the end, basically nothing,” he told the Times.

“If you analyse the problems, there aren’t any that can’t be easily solved.”

Ecclestone said that if the For­mula One Teams Association (FOTA) went ahead with their decision to create a breakaway series, only disaster would follow.

“If that started, everybody would be suing everybody else and there would be no other series,” he told the newspaper.

“There would be nothing. It would be finished — it would be a total disaster. Everyone would spend a fortune on lawyers and nothing will happen.”

Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Brawn GP, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso, under the FOTA banner, said on Thursday they would not sign up to next year’s world championship and would start their own series in 2010.

It was the culmination of a bitter dispute over plans by Max Mosley, president of F1’s ruling body the FIA, to introduce a voluntary £40mil budget cap.

The FIA have now threatened legal action against the teams. — AFP

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