Former FIA president Max Mosley has hit out at F1's spending habits, particularly driver salaries.

Long a champion of budget-capping, and certainly reducing the overall spending in F1, Mosley believes that team budgets must be limited.

Still keen to see an annual limit of around $100m per team, his latest comments come just days after Lewis Hamilton signed a new mega-deal with Mercedes which would allegedly swallow up a large portion of its (regulated) annual budget.

"It is absurd," he told GQ magazine. "If I was a dictator in the sport, each team would have the same money and you could spend more on the driver or less on the car or vice versa. All the driver worries about is what he earns compared with the other guy."

His other major concern remains safety.

"The conventional wisdom was if you made it safe fewer people would watch. The opposite has happened," he said.

"The reason I care about the safety is because I have seen the consequences. A terrorist incident that kills 10 people is a massive story. Until recently, 10 people were killed on roads every day. America turned the world upside down after 9/11, but more are killed on the road."

Any chance GQ could interview Jean Todt, so that we might learn the current FIA president's thoughts?

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by F1 Yank, 01/06/2015 18:23

"Well I would have to say that the model of "F1" is always changing and it is a fact that if you have a larger budget you will have a quicker car. The budget cap theory make sense in every way but it does conflict and causes us to look at the other series that develop only a single chassis configuration. (I think Indycar is boring.) F1 is about the top pinnacle of technology, development, drivers and racing. I remember in Boy Scouts we participated in the "Pine Wood Derby". It was very cool to see all the different styles of cars and configurations placed on the old wood track. I think this is what draws me to F1. Back to the budget caps, there is a need for it but there also is a need to keep "F1" as the top tier form of auto racing. How do you limit spending? If you spread the money around too much it is like a democratic organization where everyone gets a trophy. There are parts of F1 that are equal. Tires, engines, ECUs and other parts. I could see the drivers salary based directly on performance. Also the teams could have equal time in the wind tunnel. The rest, is solely on the team and their fund raising which is totally dependent on race performance. I will continue to watch and the new configuration is just as appealing to me as the screaming V10s and V8s!"

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2. Posted by gturner38, 01/06/2015 17:31

"I agree with Mosley on budget caps in general, but I wouldn't include driver salaries in the cap. In fact, I wouldn't include personnel salaries at all, but would cap the number of people working on the team in the same way other sports limit the number of players under contract. Under the current system, extra spending on the technical side gives a legitimate advantage in terms of resources with more manufacturing capacity, more engineers, more simulation, etc, but there's only ever going to be one driver behind the wheel. If someone overpays a driver, so be it. The best drivers are always going to end out with the best teams eventually anyway, so it wouldn't stop Vettel from being at Ferrari or Hamilton being at Mercedes. It would just mean they make $10 million instead of $40 million with the teams pocketing the difference."

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3. Posted by BobW, 01/06/2015 13:00

"I would not like to see the salaries get reduced. What you will then have is a whole string of pay drivers that will turn F1 into a bigger version of the local pat to drive go cart track. Added to that, the teams run the risk of millions spent in technology and nobody who his talented enough to drive with it."

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4. Posted by ape, 01/06/2015 10:51

"Pity Mosley was stabbed in the back by that tabloid gang during his battle over the costcap ,the result was that Bernie lost his nerves and agreed with Montezemolo not to change anything.

Wouldn't it be great to see a cost cap so FIA can loosen up the strict rules ."

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5. Posted by Darvi, 01/06/2015 9:40

"Odd how Mosley didn't do anything about this when he had the chance. Indeed, he was the one who promised a budget cap and did nothing about it..... I feel he's being slighly hypocritical here....."

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6. Posted by Renone, 01/06/2015 8:27

"Maybe if the tracks did not have to pay such astronomical fees to you know who for the 'privilege of hosting a race' the money could be given to the driver and and team as prize money, or is this thought somewhat radical ?"

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Mosley: Driver salaries absurd

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