I’m not quite certain whether or not Luca di Montezemolo and his fellow Ferrari directors have collectively had a bang on the head just recently or they’ve decided to try and teach a donkey to dance (first step, smack it round the head to get its attention) but the official Maranello website has gone for the FIA’s jugular in blaming the governing body’s former president Max Mosley for starting a ‘holy war’ that drove half the manufacturers out of the sport.
Clearly Maranello’s rampaging seems to have ignored the fact that BMW were useless at F1 these past couple of years, and Toyota arguably even worse, and it’s just possible that Honda were busy going nowhere as well. But Ferrari’s point is that swapping these big names for Lotus F1, Virgin Racing, Campos Meta and US F1 and a bunch of Serbians with their second-hand Toyotas is hardly a fair deal which adds credibility to the sport.
On the face of it, these manufacturers left for widely differing reasons, but Ferrari exclusively blames it all on Mosley being hell-bent on implementing a “controversial and ill-conceived” budget cap.
"Of the 13 teams who signed up – or were induced to sign up – for this year's championship, to-date only 11 of them have heeded the call, turning up on-track, some later than others, and while some have managed just a few hundred kilometres, others have done more, but at a much-reduced pace,” says a highly provocative item on the Ferrari website in the Horse Whisperer column.
"As for the twelfth team, Campos Meta 1, its shareholder and management structure has been transformed, according to rumours which have reached the Horse Whisperer through the paddock telegraph, with a sudden cash injection from a munificent white knight, well-used to this sort of last-minute rescue deal. However, the beneficiaries of this generosity might find the knight in question expects them to fulfil the role of loyal vassal.”
Can’t think who the hell this white knight might be, can you Bernie?
