Mosley defends manufacturer money plan

06/02/2006

As Formula One awaits the next move from the manufacturers, following FIA President Max Mosley's suggestion that they should not be given a share of the revenue from F1, the Englishman has defended the idea.

Talking to the BBC, Mosley repeated a comment made to journalist Christian Silt last week, but which was subsequently omitted from the article carried in the London Evening Standard.

Referring to the new rules proposed for 2008, and the cost savings that this would mean to the manufacturers and teams, Mosley said it was; "quite logical to give the money they would have got to the smaller, independent teams to raise the whole standard of the competition".

He admitted that the matter has already been discussed with the sport's Commercial Rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, who, according to Mosley, was "thinking about it".

The Englishman insists that despite the uproar that these proposals will provoke from both manufacturers and manufacturer-back teams, that a deal which will prevent a breakaway series is at hand.

"I think three of the five want to accept what's on the table and then the other two are still arguing," he said.

Regarding the GPMA's claim that, following a European Union anti-trust probe, the FIA has no right to involve itself in the sport's commercial affairs and is only to be concerned with regulatory matters, Mosley said: "They seem to think we shouldn't be saying anything because we don't do the commercial side of the sport.

"But of course they are misunderstanding the situation, which is we mustn't profit from any of the different championships we regulate.

"But that doesn't stop us from saying about any particular championship that the people who have a great deal of money should get less and the people who have less money should get more."