F1 & Mosley to discuss cash cuts

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FIA president Max Mosley will meet with Formula One teams later this month to discuss new cost-cutting measures for the sport.

Mosley told BBC Sport that F1 needed to reduce its costs by 2010 in order to remain "credible" amid the global financial crisis.

The FIA said "strategic decisions... with regard to worldwide economic problems" would be on the agenda.

The meeting will take place after the Chinese Grand Prix.

Mosley talked about the situation with Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who heads up the recently formed Formula One Teams Association (Fota), in Nice on Wednesday.

He plans to invite the full membership of Fota to a meeting at an unspecified location immediately after the Shanghai race on 19 October.

Mosley said the sport was already in danger of financially overstretching itself, and the credit crunch and accompanying financial difficulties would only exacerbate the situation.

"It has become apparent, long before the current difficulties, that F1 was unsustainable," Mosley told the BBC in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

"At the moment we've got 20 cars. If we lost two teams, we'd have 16. (If we lost) three teams (we'd have) 14. It then would cease to be a credible grid."

If no agreement is reached, the FIA said it would enforce its own measures.

Former Minardi boss Paul Stoddart warned it will be very difficult to get everyone within the sport to agree to financial restrictions.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: "It is very hard to solve this problem because Formula One has always been about the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

"The biggest disparity was I can remember was in 2002 when we [Minardi] competed with a budget of $28m against teams with $500,000,000.

"Max has been trying to get teams to run on a $100m budget. But people will spend what they have to spend.

"Formula One will survive. But I think some kind of budget cap or spending control would be sensible.

"However, it is much easier said than done. You will always have people who do not agree."