Ferrari, Renault threaten to quit F1 in 2010
May 15, 2009 by Anthony Crawford
Ferrari and Renault have both issued press releases threatening to leave Formula One next year in protest against new FIA regulations that would force them to cap team expenditure at approximately A$80 million.
The Ferrari threat would see its uninterrupted participation in the World Championship come to an end after almost 60 years as the only team to have remained since the sport’s inception in 1950.
Renault’s statement says the decision of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) to introduce two
sets of Formula One technical regulations for the 2010 Formula One season has caused the Renault Group to reconsider its entry in next year’s FIA Formula One World Championship.
The president of the ING Renault F1 Team, Bernard Rey, commented: “Renault has always considered Formula One as the pinnacle of motor sport and the perfect stage to demonstrate technical excellence. We remain committed to the sport, however we cannot be involved in a championship operating with different sets of rules, and if such rules are put into effect, we will be forced to pull out from next season.”
The new regulations are aimed at reducing the overall cost of competing in Formula 1 in order to make the sport more affordable following the withdrawal of Honda before the 2009 season.
If these indispensable principles are not respected and if the regulations adopted for 2010 will not change, then Ferrari does not intend to enter its cars in the next Formula One World Championship.
Ferrari trusts that its many fans worldwide will understand that this difficult decision is coherent with the Scuderia’s approach to motor sport and to F1 in particular, always seeking to promote its sporting and technical values.
This comes as manufacturers cull their motor sport involvement across all disciplines in the wake of the global economic downturn.
Although this is not the first time Ferrari has threatened to quit Formula One and it is unlikely this will eventuate considering the brand’s reliance on the sport to showcase its performance pedigree.
Print it: 
Maybe the greatest car maker in the world should go into F1. Imagine seeing the blue oval going around with the big boys of F1. I am sure Craig Lowndes would be up for a drive, he could easily match his skills with these guys he is the greatest Australian driver of all time. Go the mighty FORD!!
Ford 4 life have you started drinking early?
I can only hope and prey that Ferrari quit and the sooner the better. Every time thhey don’t get their own way we here this same rubbish. They are nothing but a bunch of spoilt kids. They have been the most devisive team in the history of the sport. Just look back over the past 10 or so years we have had them caught with illegal bodywork on Eddie Irvines car in the last couple of races of the year. But did they get their points taken away? No! Then the “Shumucky” years of bad sportmanship that IMO just about destroyed the “sport” that is F1. In 2007, one of the big auditing companies in Europe reported that Ferrari sell approximately $900 million (yes 900 million) of genuine Ferrari merchandise per year worldwide. Most of this comes from the F1 team. Do you really think that they would walk away from that? Where would they race? World sports cars races in front of near empty grandstands and is not shown on TV much outside of Europe. They can’t enter Indy car as it is a one chassis championship. Its a shame as we could have seen the last of them!
Fair point eh179….
They threatened to move to Indy, but agree they are not gonna do that :)
In some ways, I am not a fan of the price cap.. F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sports, and the bigger the budget, the more technology – which is one of the reasons I love the sport.
Besides they are proposing this to make it more competitive with the smaller teams… Gee – Look at Toyota this year!! Even Brawn on a limited budget before Branson came in – I dont thing $$$$ is going to make a huge difference given how the smaller teams are going.
Taking the mandatory fuel stop out next year will be good…I reckon dont much around with budgets!!
That’s my view anyway..
J
Sorry eh179 but your just a wank…the greatest f1 team to ever be in the sport since in inception is ferrari…illegal bodywork…please…and ferrari the only ones to have done that are they….
If they go, millions of dollars will go and people…they will pull out dont you worry about that, no matter of the the 900mill, they will still sell merchandise if there in f1 or not…it’s not about the budgets, it all about the restrictions and rules taking away from racing at the top end of sport F1….
Eccelstone and the rest need to pull their heads in, melbourne race…late afternoon sun in the drivers eyes DANGEROUS…all so the rest of the world could see it at a time that best suits them..never mind how the drivers who drove in it felt….And Bahrain, hottest time of the fn year, again dangerous not to mention damage !! But all because bernie said so…
If they go, it will not be f1 !!…
FERRARI…
And goo webberrrrrrr !!!!!!
F1 was ruined when you had NON car manufacturers racing like Red Bull etc.
I hope Ferrari and Renault do a scorched earth and leave and make up a new league.
It isn’t just Ferrari and Renault threatening to leave, its Ferrari, Toyota, Red Bull and Renault. James F, the Brawn car was developed by Honda, who spent a reported $400 million developing it just before they pulled out. So Brawns success is in no way reflective of what you can do with a small budget. I hope the major teams pull out and make their own race series without the constant rule changing and ridiculous restrictions. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport, not some budget amateur racing series. If you can’t afford to keep up in F1, go to F3000, simple.
Ferrari doesn’t need F1, just like Lamborghini survives perfectly fine without an F1 team. If it joined LeMan, it would still have racing pedigree, in a race series that has even more technology overlap with road cars.
Further to the BrawnGP thing, as part of the settlement between Honda and Brawn Honda are fully funding the team for this season to the tune of $200 million on top of the previously mentioned $400 million they spent last season… so no Brawn’s success is in no way indicative of what one can do with a small budget.
High Horsepower – Based on your suggestions that non-manufacturers ruined the sport, you do realise that two of the biggest names and most successfull names in the sport, Williams and Mclaren, are NOT car manufacturers?? Sure Mclaren are now partly owned by Merceedes and make cars every now and then, but that is all quite recent, back in the 80’s during Mclarens biggest successes they where 100% private owned and where in no way a car manufacturer, same with Williams.
If you wish for a F1 without Mclaren and Williams and instead made up only of car manufacturers is rediculous because car manufactures have always been very fickle in their involvement in F1 and can pull out at any time, Ferrari’s continued participation in F1 for such a long time has been the great exception, not the rule.
I can’t imagine any team or driver who would be happy racing against another which has more favourable rules for some arbitrarily construed reason.
For those who race Karts, for example, it would be like “rich” driver A racing clubman would be forced to use SL1 tyres, while the “poor” driver B would be allowed to use SL4 tyres, giving him a 1-2 second per lap advantage.
Anyone who thinks Driver A would continue racing clubman is seriously deluded – why would you when you are guaranteed to lose every time.
Marcoz, so somebody has a different opinion to YOU and all you can restort to is pathetic drivel. Look in the mirror my friend. Ferrari have cheated for the past 40 years. Go and buy some of the books, freely available from Motoring Bookshop in Melbourne or Wheels of Time (and another 100 websites) written by ex F1 people including ex-Ferrari employees and you will learn all about cheating by the red team. Yes they were caught in 1999 with illegal bodywork. But Bernie stepped in and the tittle was won by Mikka Hakkinen. They have been caught with illegal fuel, illegal engines, illegal fuel cells, illegal gearboxes and so the list goes on. Every single time they have their backs to the wall, oh were gonna give up.
The sport would be so much better off. Toyota are a pathetic bunch of loosers as well. They have spent a reputed 5 billion dollars since entering F1, for what? Most of the teams threatening to leave (apart from Redbull) are car manufacturers looking for an honerable way to quit because they want to get out anyway. I mean seriously BMW Sauber? What a heap of junk that bathtub on wheels is!
Ford 4 Life, get a grip. Ford were in F1 under the Stewart F1 team and then as a fully funded Ford team as Jaguar until Redbull boaught the team out. It was an abject failure so they bailed out.
EH179 – mate you make a good point, but i probably wouldn’t go in too hard on the ferrari / cheating line because historically high level european motorsport, particularly through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s was massively overshadowed by obvious and extreem cheating accross all levels of motorsport and by nearly all top teams, this includes rallying, F1, sportscar, touring cars (especially touring cars) and the bikes. To single out Ferrari is, in my opinion at least, quite unfair.
Lets not forget ofcourse that the three most recent teams caught cheating in F1 where Mclaren, Toyota and BAR Honda, and in the case of Mclaren and Toyota it was cheating directly against Ferrari, Mclaren with stolen design drawings and Toyota where caught buying aero designs off former Ferrari employees.
I am not saying that Ferrari are saints, far from it, but they are most definetly not the only ones and its harsh to single them out the way in which your doing
also BMW Sauber are struggling this year (but are far from the only ones, Mclaren and Ferrari anyone?) however the two season before that they where consistantly the third fastest car so i dunno i think your being a touch harsh on them too
It’s hard to take some people seriously, when they accuse one team of being the only one to interpret the rules aggressively.
As for singling out Shumi for agressive driving, well he was the last of the era where EVERY top driver including Senna, Jones, Prost, etc, etc regularly punted people off to change title results. Men were men then, as the saying goes, now they are relative crybabies.
But for me, this makes me cringe “……Toyota are a pathetic bunch of loosers as well.”
What kind of loser can’t tell the difference between lose and loose. Clearly wasn’t paying attention in English class. Back in my days at school, nobody made spelling mistakes with 4 letter words……the shame of that.
Reckless1 – the drivers aren’t cry babies, you won’t find any more uncompromising drivers as Alonso, Hamilton, Webber, Massa, Raikonen when he is in the mood, did you see the Webber / Alonso move at the last GP? Wouldn’t call that a crybaby move, its only the rules that have changed, the drivers attitudes haven’t.
Richo
You certainly have some valid viewpoints about cheating in motorsport sport, dont forget that Toyota was stripped of it’s World Rally Championship title in the early nineties after getting busted with illegal components with their Celica’s.
Toyata were so sick of seeing Lancia clean up 6 Consecutive World Rally Championships in the Delta Integrale they had to cheat.
Yep very true, as it turned out Lancia weren’t far off getting out of the sport and Toyota cleaned up anyway with their finally legal Corolla’s
Reckless1, you need to read what I wrote again. What I am saying is that I am sick of seeing Ferrari cheat and then when caught, not punished, or when punished, drag out the same old line, “oh we are gonna quit”. Yes other teams cheat. Honda was caught with illegal fule cells a couple of years ago. Toyota were caught in the WRC with illegal turbos. There are many other examples (Brock and Moffat with roller rockers in the old Group C days). But there is a common theme with the other examples. They all copped it on the chin, served out their penalties with dignity and moved on. However, with Ferrari it is the same old thing. Court proceedings and then when their backs are to the walls, “oh were gonna quit”. Well the sport is bigger than the individual so I say bugger off Ferrari.
As to some teams starting their own championship, go and try! All of the best circuits worldwide are contracted to Bernie, so we would have a second rate championship with second rate circuits. Formula 1 has the name and the history. The cost of setting up another championship would be massive. Bernie has the money via sponsorship and TV rights. Immagine Renault or BMW going to their bvoards. “oh we know we are loosing billions and all that but can we please have a couple more to race cars that are totaly meaningless to our road cars so we can race on second rate old cicuits in a championship that nobody has ever heard of”?
Yep I can see that working well.
trust me, it won’t happen. Bernie will find a way to keep Reggie and the Prancing Horse (donkey) in F1.
Oh and another thing I forgt, with Ferrari, when they stuff up in a race, lets blame the drivers. Now we all know Raikonen couldent give a stuff anymore and just want the cash, but blaming Massa for running out of fuel??? Come on!! What does have to fuel it himself and put it on AMEX or something. Its just Ferrari going back to the bad old pre Todt days. They lost Todt and Brawn and are now just crap again. And I say yay to that!
Yeah… truly Eh179 you are a wank…you have no idead what your talking about, and no it’s not an attack on you for your different opinion..its cause your just full off doo doo and your extremely wrong extremley wrong….no offence….haha..
stick to watching desperate houswives mate and let the true fans of f1 discuss adult things…
now run along and play…
ok sorry keypad touched extra letter…”IDEA” i meant to type… not idead..
Hmmmmm No idea huh. Well lets think here. I have attended EVERY F1 GP here in Australia as a track marshall (as well as most V8/ATCC for the past 29 years) 3 British GP’s, 3 German GP’s, 1 French, 1 USGP at Indy, 1 Canadia GP, 1 Turkish GP and 1 Singapore GP. I am off to the British and French GP this year (got my tickets last week) and will go to British and Monte Carlo GP next year. I worked for 2 Formula 5000 teams and 1 Formula Holden team here in Oz and a Formula 3000 team in England some years back. I think I am qualified to comment. Besides which I am entitled to an opinion. Now I not sure about how many F1 races you have been to or you just an armchair “expert”? Anyway I don’t really care. I have an opinion and I will express it as I please. Note though that I have not degenerated to your purile name calling, so whos the wanker now?
Marcoz, no idea about what? Tell me more you have me interested, well for the first time anyway cause most of what you write is a total load of crap.