Judgement day

MOTOR Sport

Judgement day By: WIWAT CHANG Published: 29/05/2009 at 12:00 AM Newspaper section: Motoring

It's an awful shame that when people want more free entertainment to escape the gloom circling world economy, the sport they like to watch is mired in dispute and controversy.

Budget cap: not something to easily walk away from.

First came the lie involving Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team in Melbourne, Australia. And second was the legal challenge by the big teams over the legitimacy of the double-decker rear diffusers on the cars from Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams, although one must concede that both were issues that actually added zest to the sport.

But the third big issue to surface in five months is a turn-off that could prompt fans to turn off the telly and go do something else instead _ unless you are a Ferrari fan: the ongoing dispute over the FIA's proposed 40m (around B2.2bn) annual team budget cap for 2010.

If the FIA wanted to put a budget cap in fear of loosing a player like Honda, then all they had to do was to ask the teams how they could help to ensure their survival in the medium term, but they did not.

The FOTA (Formula One Teams Association) demanded last Sunday that FIA revert the proposed budget cap rules to its present version _ albeit okaying to the refuelling ban _ or else some of the teams would walk out next year.

One day later, Team Williams became the first of the current ten teams to confirm entry for next year. albeit supporting FOTA's push for dismissal of the budget cap.

Team Williams is one of the smaller budget teams and not backed by a car manufacturer, so it virtually has nothing to loose from a budget cap anyway.

One team for sure that could loose either way is Ferrari. By squeezing its wallet, the Scuderia's race cars might not be competitive. And since the company's only advertising medium is through F1 racing, the cap is more like castration.

Should Ferrari walk away before 2012 and breech its F1 contract with the FIA and FOM (Bernie Ecclestone's F1 commercial arm) then it would have to pay back millions of dollars of TV revenue share from FOM.

The proposed budget cap has a strange set of clauses penalising teams that cannot keep spending under the limit by imposing stricter, less competitive technical limitations to the cars.

At the same time, teams that abide by the cap would be given more technical freedom that practically reads better performances.

Such rules are deemed by all the current teams to corrupt F1 in to a two-tier series.

The FIA probably wrote such new proposals to attract new entries into the sport and help make up for financial losses FOM may incur.

Within days of the proposals, teams racing down the order in the Formula series signalled their interests in joining the new cheaper F1.

But FIA boss, Max Mosley, has already hinted at the FIA becoming flexible to the needs of FOTA, so it is likely that all the fuss will be cleared today _ the deadline for 2010 F1 entry applications.

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