FIA president Jean Todt is urging motorsport to pursue a "complete rethink" of how it operates amid the threat posed by the coronavirus.

With every major international series currently on hold due to Covid-19, there is growing concern over the financial implications with Formula 1, Formula E and others coming up with strategies to ease the impact.

However, in DTM, Audi has already announced their withdrawal after 2020 and the longer the lockdowns continue, it is feared other carmakers with follow suit in other categories.

“I don’t think that the priority now for a manufacturer is to secure continuity in motor racing,” Todt said speaking in the FIA’s AUTO magazine.

“I’m sure some teams, suppliers and manufacturers may have to review their programmes. They might be constrained to stop.

“I hope team owners and sponsors will keep the motivation. We must encourage them to feel they still like it and need it, on that, we have a responsibility that’s why we should listen to everybody.

“We must be humble; even if we love motorsport, it is not essential for society. So we have to ensure that we make proper choices and wise decisions.

“In fact, what’s needed is a complete rethink of how we go motor racing. We could talk of a ‘New Deal’ approach like America had after the Great Depression”.

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Much of the talk has centred around F1 as many of the smaller teams on the grid are so dependent on the revenue they receive from the commercial rights holder, money that has now dried up due to Covid-19.

As a result, many are urging the sport to make drastic changes to fix what has been labelled an unsustainable model for many years with $100m budget caps and customer cars two of the boldest suggestions put forward.

Ferrari though has been baulking at setting a budget cap too low, but former boss Stefano Domenicali says F1 can't risk being too conservative.

“The FIA and Liberty together with the teams, I feel that what they are really thinking about for the future, they are heading in the right direction,” he told Autosport.

“This is a take it or leave it opportunity and you cannot leave it, you need to take it otherwise the risk will be very high of it not returning to be the platform it was."

Nowadays, Domenicali is CEO at Lamborghini and president of the FIA's single-seater commission and more broadly, he believes motorsport in general also must use the coronavirus to adapt.

“I think that it would be criminal not to take this opportunity to revisit the points we know we need to improve," he continued.

“Therefore we are really working in these weeks to make sure we can present to the FIA World Council in June, ideas that we were discussing but always postponing because the system was accepting that when the (economic) situation was really good.

“Now we need to take it on board. I see this as an opportunity for the motorsport industry to reshape.

“There’s no doubt that motorsport will be an essential part into the future, but short term we need to revisit the level of investment and maybe the level of technology and the number of championships.

“We need to have a baseline zero to consider how we build back up, considering that over the next couple of years the situation will improve and motorsport will remain a very important platform for our industry.”