Formula One news

Ecclestone: "Ferrari is Formula One"

Bernie Ecclestone is keen to see a future for Ferrari in Formula One after the possibility arose this week that the team may withdraw from the sport. An announcement from the team's Maranello base on Tuesday stated that Ferrari would not be submitting an entry to the 2010 championship without revision of the FIA's proposed budget cap.

The Scuderia, constructors' Champions in 16 years including 2008, has endured a highly frustrating start this season as F1 returned with highly differing aerodynamic regulations. With a £40m budget cap proposed for next year and the subsequent possibility of a 'two-tier' championship taking place, however, Ferrari has become the third team - after Toyota and Red Bull - to threaten an exit from the sport.

"I'm not one to talk about perfect marriages," F1 supremo Ecclestone said to The Times, having divorced from wife Slavica in November of last year, "but this is a perfect marriage. Formula One is Ferrari and Ferrari is Formula One; it's as simple as that and it's not going to change."

The FIA's proposed scheme would involve teams electing to compete with the budget cap option whilst enjoying more technical advantages or, alternatively, run on an unlimited budget by complying to more restricted technical rules, such as this year; it is this matter - of running with two sets of technical regulations in the field - over which teams are expressing their dissatisfaction. "I hope common sense will prevail, because the last thing we want to do is lose any of the manufacturers or teams currently in Formula One," Ecclestone added.

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