Ferrari working with Liberty, FIA to find 'sensible equilibrium' for F1 future

The big task for F1 owners will be to keep Ferrari in the sport beyond 2020.

3y ago

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After having threatened to quit Formula 1 multiple times, Ferrari boss Sergio Marchionne has now called for finding a 'sensible' solution to sort its team's and the sport's future beyond the 2020 regulations.

The new owners wants to install a budget cap - which so far hasn't seen a green light for many times it was discussed in recent times. But, Liberty Media is seemingly trying to devise a way wherein it doesn't disrupts the working of the teams.

Speaking to analysts on Thursday, Marchionne was all in to support the plans of Liberty as well as the FIA, but only if it still stays relevant to the Italian manufacturer. "I think we now have enough of a basis to try start having meaningful discussions," he said in the report on Reuters.

"And hopefully, we’ll get it all resolved by the end of this year one way or the other. The important thing for us... is that we don’t touch the nature of the technical development of the powertrains because that is at the heart of what Ferrari does for a living.

"I think we need to continue to work with Liberty with the commercial rights holders and with the [governing] FIA to try and bring about a sensible equilibrium. If we can’t, as I said before, we’ll just pull out.

"But we’re not there today. I think we owe the sport a phenomenal effort to try and bring about closure of these items. We’ll try and get that done before the end of this year," the Italian added, hinting it is still not 100 percent on the various things been tabled.

Marchionne has been against the idea of standardising elements in the power units - some of it which has been proposed or implemented as well. In addition, with the historic money also going down for Ferrari, Marchionne is wary of the 'economic' side of the proposal.

“I’m encouraged by the change in the attitude that we are seeing from Liberty in terms of the extent of the changes that they’re forecasting in 2021,” he said. "Probably the biggest indication has been the recognition of the fact that the engine regulations need to reflect sort of the nature of the sport.

"And we can’t really dumb down engine development just to accommodate new entries, right? So the stuff that’s on the table now is potentially workable as a system. The economics are not. I think that’s something that we need to go back to Liberty with."