17/01/2009
NEWS STORY
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During his customary visit to Wrooom, his team's annual media get together in the Dolomites, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who is also president of the Formula One Teams Association shared his thoughts on a number of issues as the sport prepares for the new season, new rules and possibly a new era.
"I think that this sport has four S's," he said, "stability, seriousness, spectacle and sustainability.
"Stability means not changing the rules every six months or every year," he continued. "We need to plan ahead and the spectators remain puzzled by too many changes. Seriousness, because you need a lot to be able to deal with difficult moments: we need to stay united and humble, without ever giving the impression that we're divided. Spectacle means attention to the circuits' layouts, to enable overtaking, to the sporting rules, but also to the use of new technologies such as the internet, high definition and much more that you can introduce in this field. Sustainability, because no company can stay alive if costs and earnings don't balance."
As far as costs are concerned Montezemolo once more underlined the work being done by the teams in recent months: "We've done some incredible work," he said, "cutting costs significantly already as of 2009 and we'll systematically do the same in 2010 and 2011.
"We'll also confront the issue of earnings," he continued. "We've got an agreement until 2012 and we've got all the time we need to improve the show and increase income.
Clearly referring to the current set-up of the sport's commercial governance, he said: "We think that Formula 1 has to be a normal sport that is not connected to single people. There must be a triangle: at the top there are the teams, who invest and innovate, today more than ever before; then there's someone who manages the commercial aspects, a type of super agent, just like Ecclestone has been doing; last but not least a sporting and political authority, which takes the teams' unanimity into account and protects the sports nature.
"My commitment as President has been asked by all the teams: it won't last long, but I'm glad that I managed to convince everybody that we can be competitors on the track and work together off track. We've reached some extraordinary results, cutting costs without doing something stupid, something Ferrari could have done, such as leaving a Formula 1 without competition and innovation. For us Formula 1 is our life: it's not a coincidence that we've dedicated our new car to the 60th continuous participation in the World Championship. The company's history is interwoven with the history of Formula 1 and vice versa."