Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo
Formula One teams have decided to reduce the cost of customer engines by over £12m from 2011, Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo has revealed. This should help smaller teams to exist in F1, who could now be paying £4m for an engine instead of £16m.
Motorsport boss Max Mosley had been putting pressure on teams to reduce costs in F1 and it is understood that all engine manufacturers have agreed to slash prices in the future. The worry had been that privateer teams, such as Williams, Red Bull, and Force India, would be forced out of the series by spiralling costs.
Announcing the move di Montezemolo said: ‘We unanimously decided that by 2011 an engine will cost £4m, compared to the £16m plus they used to cost.’ Di Montezemolo has recently been nominated as the chairman of the Formula One Teams Association, a body set up to represent their interests in discussions with governing body the FIA.
He also revealed that he destroyed a television after Lewis Hamilton stole the championship from Ferrari driver Felipe Massa. ‘I broke the television, I must tell the truth,’ he said. ‘When a television breaks it makes a terrible bang. My daughter in the other room was given an awful fright. Luckily we had another television so I was able to watch the podium ceremony, which I enjoyed.’