31/01/2008
NEWS STORY
Having already raised the cost of a superlicence by almost 500 percent, the FIA - ever keen to reduce spending in F1 - wants the teams to pay the costs of the inspectors who will check the books to ensure that nobody breeches the budget cap set to be introduced next year.
Mosley has already threatened the teams, warning that unless they accept his budget-capping proposals, a raft of new rules will be introduced including measures to severely limit the use of windtunnels and other technology.
The FIA President believes that if each of the eleven teams - there should have been twelve but things didn't work out - were to contribute two million euros, the 22 million euros raised could finance a team of financial experts capable of doing the job. (A possible move for F1 loving Peter Hain perhaps).
Speaking to journalists in London earlier this week, Mosley said, according to Reuters: "If you are going, let's say, from (a budget of) 200 million euros down to 100 million, then even if you spent two million euros a team you are still saving 98. For that kind of money, you can really check.
"The experience with McLaren and Ferrari taught us that if you deploy the resources and you get sufficient expertise, you can find almost anything," he added. "And the chances of somebody being able to do work that we couldn't find traces of start to be very small."
The exact figure of the budget cap has yet to be agreed, though a meeting in Paris today should see those involved come up with a 'ball park figure'.
"We hope to produce a rule by June," said Mosley, "but we may run into problems that we haven't foreseen. But for the moment most of the accountants we talk to say it must be possible."
"We mustn't do it too dramatically," he added, "that is very much the topic of discussion between teams. Obviously, you've got to pitch it on the high side to begin with and then bring it down."