As two teams look likely to go to the wall, former FIA president Max Mosley warns that more could follow.

Whilst many were highly critical of the Briton during his time as FIA president, especially of his close relationship with Bernie Ecclestone, there is no doubting the positive things he did for the sport, mainly in terms of safety.

However, the Briton, who had run his own F1 team during the early 70s, was also behind moves to limit spending in the sport, fearing that escalating costs due to the competitiveness of the leading teams would ultimately drive out smaller teams and in time destroy the sport.

It was Mosley who pushed for the budget cap that was to see three new teams enter the sport in 2010, a budget cap that was subsequently vetoed and would lead to all three teams going under.

Today, as Marussia followed Caterham by going in to administration, Mosley warned that unless the sport heeds the warnings more will follow.

"It's not a fair competition any more," he told BBC Radio 5 Live. "The big problem is that the big teams have so much more money than teams like Caterham and Marussia. In the end, they were bound to drop off... and they may not be the last.

"From a sporting point of view, the sport should split the money equally and then let the teams get as much sponsorship as they can," he suggested. "A team like Ferrari will always get more sponsorship than Marussia, but if they all get the same basic money, then they all start on a level-playing field, particularly if you have a cost cap where you limit the amount of money each team is allowed to spend."

Like many, Mosley cites the costs incurred as the sport changed to a new, more environmentally friendly, formula this year.

"I'm in favour of the greener engines," he said. "The mistake was not saying to the big manufacturers that you can spend as much as you want on research but the maximum you can charge per season is something like £3m to £4m instead of the £15m to £20m, which I believe it is now."

As the sport faces its smallest grid (18 cars) since Monaco 2005 (pictured), when BAR was serving a two-race ban for running underweight cars, Mosley is not in favour of the idea of third cars.

"You should have 10-12 two-car teams and the rules should be arranged so that if someone is a really good engineer starting at the back, they can work their way up to the front," he said.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Spindoctor, 31/10/2014 15:56

"@MrShadow
Premier League teams do spend hundreds of millions, but they also get the Lion's share of the INCOME from TV rights, and from actually putting-on the events. Even the most profligate (Man City or Chelsea) are being forced by FIFA to operate much closer to "break-even", and Arsenal actually returns a profit to its shareholders.
On the playing field it's highly unlikely that (say) Stoke or Swansea will top the League, but quite possible that they'll beat any or all of the top 6 teams at least once this season.
Not only does the Premier League have its 20 teams, but there are dozens of hopefuls all clamouring to join.

Compare & contrast with F1, where Teams spend £M00's net of income & Bernie & his acolytes can't summon up a full grid. Even should they eventually scrape together (up?) a couple more teams to make up the numbers, its highly unlikely these teams will ever threaten the top 10, let alone win a GP.

While both F1 & the Premier League claim to be the at pinnacle of their respective sport's hierarchy, only the Premiership can make a persuasive argument."

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2. Posted by MrShadow, 29/10/2014 18:23

"Take the clubs in the Premier League and you will find the budgets are not any less, with an arguably lower audience. Considering it is supposed to be the world's nr 1 technological sport the actual budgets are not the issue."

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3. Posted by Spindoctor, 29/10/2014 14:08

"It's obvious that enforcing efficiency improvements on F1 engine-makers has led to spiralling costs, but that change (PR aside) was never "green". The switch-over has allowed engineers to extract more energy out of each litre of fuel, and that, in my book, is a good thing. It has reinforced F1's potential to innovate technology, so that winning now involves a (bit) more than simply employing Adrian Newey to design the most efficient chassis.

Irrespective of this, F1's problems derive in large measure from the sweetheart deal between Max Mosley\FIA and Bernie. The crux of these problems is that Bernie & CVC get fat(ter) irrespective of the overall sate of health of F1. As long as they can enlist sponsors to pay huge fees to host the circus, and get a few quid out of TV networks to televise them, they're laughing. No matter that both TV and live audiences are falling.
I believe that since becoming the "owners" of F1 CVC have pocketed around 9 billion.

None of this matters if we accept that F1 only "needs" half-a-dozen teams each fielding 3 cars (one way or another), and that only those with £300-400 million per year to spend stand a chance of winning. I suppose there is some definition of "sport" which would encompass this set-up, but I don't know what it might be."

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4. Posted by Paul C, 28/10/2014 23:58

"Green spec cars are lame. Drop the electronics, the cheesy component limits, and make F1 more than a short Petronas and Pirelli Economy Run. Isn't Formula E enough of a sop for the Green Party types? How about an accompanying Nissan Leaf & Tesla touring car series for Formula Scaletrix? "

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5. Posted by VC10-1103, 28/10/2014 21:15

"This environmentally friendly formula is a joke, pure window dressing. As long as they have countless transporters carrying cars, hospitallity centres etc F1 will never be green. 22 cars and now 18 'green' cars doesn't even scratch the surface of the energy used during a GP weekend and that is when they are running in daylight! "

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6. Posted by Satellite, 28/10/2014 12:45 (moderated by an Adminstrator, 28/10/2014 12:56)

"This comment was removed by an administrator as it was judged to have broken the site's posting rules and etiquette."

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7. Posted by Darvi, 28/10/2014 9:57

"I agree with Max's comments, sadly, it would appear that the deal he and Bernie cooked up for Bernie to own the commercial rights to F1 until hell freezes over has put Bernie in the position that allows him to milk F1 for all he can with little regard for the people that actually create the show. Worse, when the manufacturers were deserting in droves, Max and Bernie made cost capping promises to tempt new teams into the sport and keep it alive. As the manufacturer support increased again, they turned their back on the teams and, to be honest, I'm surprised that Caterham and Marussia have survived as long as they have.

The FIA need to step in and take more interest in their flagship championship and do something about cost capping and reducing Bernie's desire to stage a GP in any country that will cough up the cash."

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8. Posted by Stitch431, 28/10/2014 7:50

"@ TokyoAussie: Point is that the cost per engine would even rise more, also for the customer teams as I don't see that the manufacturers will start acting like father Christmas on this as they have proven in the past to ask ridiculous amounts for their engines, rather than a reasonable price for the other competitors. This is what the powers that be (FIA & Bernie) should step in and say, ok you are allowed to devellop in season but the price of that is that you have to lower the price per engine for your customers. At the moment they make their customers pay for all development cost of which they themselves are picking the best fruits of..."

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9. Posted by TokyoAussie, 28/10/2014 3:45

"Pains me to say it, but I basically agree with Max on this one.

As an aside, there is a battle over unfreezing engines. My opinion is that they must be unfrozen. Otherwise, why not just put a new regulation in the rules to the effect that only Mercedes are allowed win. Unfreeze and give the others a chance to improve, and maybe give Mercedes the chance to pull further ahead. The manufacturers, I feel sure, do not stop development of their engines; only that there is no trickle down to the engines being raced. Honda are developing an engine, so the others should also be allowed to develop their engines. Or do Ferrari and Renault have to take a sabbatical, and then come back in as new suppliers (like Honda) just so they can improve their engines?

While I am not a big fan of engine freezing during the year, I fully understand why it is in place. But to continue the freeze across several years is dumb. The only way that frozen engines makes sense is if it is a 1-make formula, which it isn't."

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Mosley warns that more teams could follow Caterham and Marussia

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