Chairman Sergio Marchionne has claimed Ferrari would be more than happy to end their participation in Formula 1 after 2020 after voicing unhappiness over the plans of new owners Liberty Media.
The two sides haven’t exactly got along since the Americans took over as Commercial Rights Holder last year especially after one of the first criticisms of the sport by Liberty was at Ferrari’s $100m bonus payment they receive.
Now the Italian team is once again trying to establish the high ground in future negotiations by issuing yet another threat to leave the sport should future changes not suit their desires with the latest area of contention the newly unveiled engine proposals for 2021.
“Liberty has got a couple of good intentions in all of this, one of which is to reduce the cost of execution for the team, which I think is good,” said Marchionne on Thursday. “[But] there are a couple of things we don’t necessarily agree with.
“One is the fact that somehow powertrain uniqueness is not going to be one of the drivers of distinctiveness of the participants’ line-up. I would not countenance this going forward.”
It is true that CEO Chase Carey has previously said the engines are too influential in determining performance but in recent years Ferrari has invested heavily to bring their current engine near to the level of Mercedes while also and would likely not want to see that wasted by the introduction of more changes.
Their problems with Liberty are more broad, however, and mostly stem from the financial aspect of the new leadership keen to see a levelling of the playing field with more equality of revenue distribution.
“The fact that we now appear to be at odds in terms of the strategic development of this thing, and we see the sport in 2021 taking on a different air, is going to force some decisions on the part of Ferrari,” the Chairman claimed.
“I understand that Liberty may have taken these into account in coming up with their views, but I think it needs to be absolutely clear that unless we find a set of circumstances, the results of which are beneficial to the maintenance of the brand, and the marketplace, and to the strengthening of the unique position for Ferrari, Ferrari will not play.”
Further future proposals, including the first test of a budget cap in 2019 according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, are set to be revealed by Liberty in a meeting of the Strategy Group on November 7th and Marchionne insists Ferrari is going in those discussions open-minded.
“I don’t want to prejudge any of this,” he said. “We’re walking into this meeting next Tuesday with the best of intentions, we’ll see where it takes us.”
But he further stoked the flames by suggesting the thought of something so incomprehensible as F1 without Ferrari would actually be welcomed in Maranello.
“It would be totally beneficial to the P&L [profits and losses],” he declared. “We would be celebrating here until the cows come home.
“What I do know is that it [F1] has been part of our DNA since the day we were born, it’s not as though we can define ourselves differently, but if we change the sandbox to the point where it becomes an unrecognisable sandbox, I don’t want to play anymore.”
