There appears to be a bitter rift in F1 between FIA president Max Mosely and Williams-BMW and McLaren-Mercedes over the teams’ criticism of the 2003 season rule changes.
There appears to be a bitter rift in F1 between FIA president Max Mosely and Williams-BMW and McLaren-Mercedes over the teams’ criticism of the 2003 season rule changes.
On Tuesday, Mosley slammed McLaren team director Ron Dennis and Williams chief Frank Williams for making “nonsense” complaints over new rules changes and for “acting irresponsibly by taking FIA to arbitration over the changes”.
CARtoday.com reported last week that Dennis and Williams claimed that the FIA was trying to “dumb down” F1, and said the rule changes would jeopardise safety.
But in reaction, Mosley said: “It is impossible to have a dialogue if the response to a carefully considered set of proposals is a collection of vague claims and confused criticisms with no discernible attempt to address the arguments.”
The FIA president accused the teams of deliberately telling the media about arbitration before the organisation could respond and lambasted Dennis and Williams for “flawed arguments”, saying the public was more interested in “drivers and sport, not electronics”.
“If you truly believe that the public want to see computer-controlled cars guided from the pits by anonymous engineers, please think again,” Mosley said.
Mosley also dismissed claims that the two teams had helped teams with financial difficulties. “Your main proactive work in the past 12 months seems to have been to try to prevent at all costs Minardi receiving money clearly due to them.
“This was money which would have gone to Prost had he continued, never to either of you, yet you are apparently doing your utmost to grab it at Minardi’s expense.”
