Ferrari questions Toyota pull out

Ferrari has blamed Formula One’s management for Toyota’s withdrawal from the sport, dismissing the Japanese firm’s own claims that its decision was cost related.

In an article posted on Ferrari’s official website, the Italian firm compared the current situation in F1 to Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel Ten Little Indians.

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F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and outgoing FIA president Max Mosley have long been critical of manufacturers’ involvement in the sport and emphasised the needs to cut costs. Ferrari claims that this constant pressure has driven Honda, BMW and Toyota out of the sport, rather than the need to cut costs.

“The reality is that this gradual defection from the F1 fold has more to do with a war waged against the major car manufacturers by those who managed Formula 1 over the past few years, than the result of any economic crisis,” said the article.

“In Christie’s work of fiction, the guilty party was only uncovered when all the other characters died, one after the other. Do we want to wait for this to happen or do we want to pen a different ending to the book on Formula 1?”

Ferrari said it valued manufacturers in the sport more than new teams including Campos, Manor and USF1 and described them as there to make up the numbers.

It also criticised the new Lotus team, describing them as being Lotus “in name only, as this incarnation has little to do with the team that gave us Colin Chapman, Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna to name but a few”.

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