Virgin: Branson feels wronged

Max Mosley, who wanted to impose a budgetary ceiling on the racing teams Formula 1 when he was at the head of the FIA, lost his battle against the heavyweights of F1, and it is the new teams who will be the victims. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, will not say otherwise. The British businessman, who supported Brawn GP this season, believes that the absence of a budgetary ceiling will disadvantage new teams, starting with Virgin Racing, which will not be able to invest as much as top teams.

« The team is at a great disadvantage, Richard Branson told crash.net, because other teams will be able to continue spending $400 million per season. I think it?s a shame that they (the FIA) gave in on this point. The new teams could have started on an equal footing, more or less, compared to the more experienced teams. »

Four teams, Virgin Racing, USF1, Lotus F1 Racing and Campos Meta, are due to enter Formula 1 in 2010. To facilitate their arrival, the FIA ​​wanted to establish a budgetary ceiling of around one hundred million euros per team per year, excluding salary and marketing expenses, and wanted to set up technical advantages in favor of these teams. But faced with the revolt of FOTA, the association of F1 teams, the FIA ​​backed down.