After the much-vaunted budget cap rules were scrapped as part of Formula One's peace deal, Manor Motorsport boss John Booth has admitted that it is too soon to say whether this will affect his plans to enter in 2010.
Booth's Manor team, which currently races in the F3 Euroseries and tasted championship success in the British F3 championship, was one of three teams selected from approximately 260,000 prospective new entrants to join the F1 grid from next year, in a move that will see the grid size rise to 26 cars. Manor, along with Campos Racing and Team USF1, will race with standard Cosworth engines, but Manor and Campos in particular both submitted their entries under the proposed £40 million budget cap.
This cap has now been abandoned as part of the new, ultra-conservative cost-cutting rules provided by FOTA for 2010, which basically state that the teams will do bog-all to cut costs, save a vague commitment to cut budgets back to levels from earlier in history. Although Booth believes his team will still make the grid, he admitted that he couldn't be certain until the rules were finalised.
"Honestly I don't know," Booth wailed to Autosport, "Every time you think you've got it sorted out it all changes again, it's like walking on quicksand. But until we see what the Concorde agreement is, if they ever sign it, then we'll comment."
On the subject of the lack of a budget cap, Booth said that: "It makes it more difficult of course, but I think we can just about manage it. It just depends what the target is in two years time, what 1990's levels were. Honestly, it's almost impossible to comment."
"It's great that all the cars are going to race in one championship," he went on to clarify, "But I can't really comment on the agreement until I know what it is - it was very broad wasn't it?"
Despite Manor's caution, the Campos Racing team are confident that their plans for F1 2010 will continue unabated despite the loss of the budget cap.
Gianpaulo Dallara, whose car design team are helping to build the Campos entry in 2010 from it's Parma HQ, said that: "We are continuing as if nothing had happened. Our car will be 2WD without the possibility to refuel and without KERS. We have worked on 2009 specification adding the extra fuel capacity required for 2010."
USF1, who had announced their entry well before the budget cap rules came into view, do not appear to have any issues with the new rules.
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