F1 teams agree to reduce engine costs

SCARPERIA, ITALY // Formula One teams have unanimously agreed to reduce engine costs by more than ?15 million (Dh70m) by 2011. The Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo presided over a meeting of the newly founded Formula One Teams Association (FOTA). The organisation decided that in the current economic climate that it would be wise to bring the costs of running a team down. "We are working with all the teams to reduce costs even more for 2010 and 2011," Montezemolo said at Ferrari's end-of-season celebration. "We unanimously decided that by 2011 an engine will cost ?5m, compared to the more than ?20m they used to cost."

The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the governing body for Formula One, recently announced it was moving forward with plans to have a sole engine and transmission supplier beginning in 2010, a move which prompted Ferrari to threaten pulling out of the sport if the plans went ahead. Ferrari believes that the move would eliminate the essence of a sport based on competition and technological development. "It's unthinkable that constructors like Ferrari, Toyota, Mercedes, Honda, Renault and BMW would accept putting their label on a machine with an engine made by someone else," Montezemolo said. "The purpose of F1 is that investments in innovation, research and development reverberate in industrial production."

*AP