I’ve written extensively about the moves afoot to bring down costs in Formula 1 over the last couple of months and talked about how the FIA intended to produce a set of rules for 2010 based on areas of non-compete on the cars to reduce costs for everyone. The key proposal is for the big teams, who choose to spend money on a technology, to be made to sell that technology to a smaller team at a capped price.
Today the FIA put out a statement which shows that it is going for this sooner rather than later, in an effort to help the sale of Honda and in plenty of time to give the USF1 project and other similar initiatives a chance of life in 2010.
The statement said, “In view of the difficult economic conditions which continue to affect Formula One sponsors and major car manufacturers, the FIA is preparing radical proposals for 2010.
“If adopted by the World Motor Sport Council, the new regulations will enable a team to compete for a fraction of current budgets but nevertheless field cars which can match those of the established teams.
“These regulations will not affect the established teams which now have stable backing from the major car manufacturers, but will enable new teams to fill the existing vacancies on the grid for 2010 and make it less likely that any team will be forced to leave the Championship. The proposals will be submitted to the World Council on 17 March.”
This is a bold statement, if rather more vague than the FIA has been in the past when laying out its plans, this is possibly a pre-emptive strike ahead of next week’s FOTA press conference in Geneva, at which we will learn exactly what thea teams have been plotting for the last few months. The FIA’s proposal does, of course, affect the larger teams as the purpose of the changes will be to allow small budget operations to compete with them.
The FIA is in a position to ram through anything it wants using the justification of force majeur, because of the global recession. Although the wording of today’s statement makes that less likely because it acknowledges that the leading teams have ‘stable backing’ from the motor manufacturers.
allenonf1.wordpress.com 
i’m not sure the FIA are in a position to ‘ram anything through’ anymore. a unanimous FOTA decision will kill off any FIA proposal deemed to be unsuitable, or at least reach a hopefully sensible compromise. i’m sure that the manufacturers in FOTA are far more aware of the current economic situation than the FIA anyway, as far as i’m concerned it’s not really their place to get involved telling teams how to run their own business, and it’s in the teams interests to compete in a sustainable race series.
areas of non-compete are a good idea but should be limited to things on which development will yeild no wider good. aero is the big one – how many millions are spent on efficient downforce when this has very little benefit outside of F1. wings should be of standardised cross section. engine technology however should not be one of these areas. this gives manufacturers reason to remain and compete, and also has the potential to feed into the outside world if the regulations go to something sensible like 150-200l per race, use it in the best way you can (subject to appropriate budget caps).
I just saw this on the ITV F1 website. Is there any truth to this speculation that the Honda management buyout has been given the all clear?
Given the recent talk they were going to be doing some testing it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if it was true. It would however be great news considering I’m a massive Jenson Button fan and I’ll be off to Melbourne for the GP in March!