This is an update to:
Had Honda Stayed In F1, They Had “A Race-Winning Car”
Ferrari’s Formula One team is planning to accelerate its cost-cutting plans for 2009 in the wake of Honda’s pullout from the sport.
“This process had already begun over the last few years. But now it’s going to have a sharp acceleration,” team director Stefano Domenicali said without providing further financial details.
Still, Domenicali warned that cuts in F1 spending shouldn’t reach the point where it wouldn’t allow healthy engineering competition. Ferrari announced in October it too would leave F1 if the sport’s governing body goes ahead with plans to have a sole engine and transmission supplier beginning in 2010.
Domenicali called Honda’s decision “a lightning strike in a clear sky.”
“It’s a big crisis and you can understand the reasons that would force an automaker, faced with thousands of job firings, to engage in such drastic cost-cutting,” he said.
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