Ferrari and Fiat President Luca di Montezemolo has laid into the 2009 rules once again in a further attack on the arbitrary nature of F1 governance.
The Italian’s team is entangled in a vicious battle with the FIA that centres around teams’ organization FOTA’s resentment of unilateral governance of the sport by Max Mosley. Speaking at the Le Mans 24 hours – an event at which di Montezemolo’s presence is in itself provocative – the Ferrari boss had another pop at the rules which have made his red cars uncompetitive this season.
“We now, after in the last 10 years winning eight titles in 10, now [Stefano] Domenicali and his group – together with some other teams – are at the moment not in the condition to win the championship,” he is quoted as saying by Autosport.
Montezemolo went on to lay the blame squarely at the door of the rule-makers.
“This happened because unfortunately we have been in front of very grey rules in which the interpretation of the rules was, how can I say, unpredictable.
“It’s quite amazing that the teams that have won the last three world championship titles in Formula 1 – Ferrari, McLaren and Renault – has done the same interpretation of the rules.
“So it is one of two [reasons]: all of us became completely drunk, or the rules became not clear. I have the answer that this is not the case because we are not drunk, yet.”
Montezemolo’s veiled attack returns to FOTA’s central theme – criticising Max Mosley’s autocratic governance and calling for more stability in the sport. Late last week FOTA went over Mosley’s head to appeal to the World Motor Sport Council to intervene and sort out the issue. A further deadline has been set for Friday this week for the FOTA teams not legally bound – McLaren, Renault, Toyota and BMW – to make unconditional entries.
