NOVEMBER 18, 2002
More teams in trouble?
Max Mosley has admitted that he is no sure that there will be 22 cars on the grid in Melbourne in March next year.
"It would be nice to have 22 cars," he told pressmen during a link to the launch of the 2003 Australian GP. "I think 20 is more probable as the number, not necessarily because of Arrows, but because there are another team or two that are not 100 hundred per cent in good shape, but we are just keeping our fingers crossed that they will all be there in March."
Mosley did not name names but it is known that at least two teams which are having trouble finding the budget they need for the coming season.
Mosley did say that he hopes that more progress can be made soon to keep costs in F1 down.
"We've not been as successful as I would like us to have been at getting down the costs." he said. "The problem has been to get agreement among the teams. If it goes on getting more and more expensive, then I think manufacturers that are not currently in it will be inclined to say it's perhaps not as good value as they would like and maybe even one or two manufacturers that are in it might stop, so I'm keeping the pressure on all the time on the teams to do a large number of things which could be done which wouldn't interfere with the spectacle, or the sporting contest, at all but would make it significantly cheaper."