F1: Safer cars mean more risks - Mosley

Max Mosley believes Formula One drivers are taking more risks because there is less chance of them dying on a race track.

Mosley, president of the world governing body FIA, said drivers could gamble more because modern cars were so much safer than years ago when they were less likely to survive a major crash.

But Mosley - speaking at the Imola track where Brazil’s three-times world champion Ayrton Senna and Austria’s Roland Ratzenberger were killed in tragic accidents in 1994 - warned that F1 was a still a dangerous sport.

‘‘We will get more collisions,’’ he said at the San Marino Grand Prix. ‘‘The safer the cars become the more people can push it to the edge knowing if there is a collision it is not likely to hurt them.

‘‘I am very glad that is the case. Psychologically, 40 years ago you drivers couldn’t take the risks they do now.’’

Mosley, though, said that drivers should not make aggressive comments about what they are going to do on the race track otherwise they could be in danger of bringing the sport into disrepute.

He was speaking after Juan Pablo Montoya’s outburst at four-times champion Michael Schumacher following their collision at the Brazilian Grand Prix two weeks ago.

The Colombian was incensed at the way Schumacher escaped punishment after chopping in front of him and wrecking his front wing and warned he is now prepared to do the same to his Ferrari rival.

‘‘I think it is very foolish if drivers express themselves aggressively on these matters because in the end it is a very dangerous sport and we can get accidents,’’ added Mosley.

‘‘If you do get some aggressive comment followed by an accident in the race that can have consequences outside the sport.

‘‘From his (Montoya’s) point of view it is probably a little unwise to complain about other drivers in case something happens which might cause him difficulties.

‘‘People should be free to express an opinion and be free to show dissent and say they don’t agree with the FIA stewards.

‘‘We try not to get involved in these sort of things unless somebody really starts to damage the sport.’’

Mosley, meanwhile, said the sport had acted to cut costs by introducing a one-engine-per-car rule from 2004 because of fears that several teams could go out of business.

The ruling effectively bans the use of high-revving engines just for qualifying with drivers set to lose 10 places on the grid if they have to use a second engine during a race weekend.

‘‘The idea that you fit three different engines in a weekend is massively uneconomic,’’ he said.

‘‘It is terribly wasteful at a time when several of the teams have not got enough money.

‘‘We can have some idealised view of things and say it nice to let everybody do what they want and spend as much money as they want.

‘‘But when we start losing two, three or four teams off the back of the grid suddenly the whole of F1 is under threat.

‘‘If you are the governing body one of your tasks is to try and foresee this possibility and deal with it.

‘‘It is all very well for the top teams to say ‘if you save me US dollars 20-30million a year I will simply

spend it on something else’. They have got the money and we are not concerned with that.

‘‘The people we are concerned with are the people who are missing US dollars 20-30milion out of their budget and absolutely no way of filling the whole.

‘‘If you are spending, which some teams are, as much as US dollars 20-30million more than you have got you cannot do it for very long.

‘‘F1 is spending more than it’s got as far as the smaller teams at the back of the grid are concerned and we cannot allow that to continue. You will find they will go out of business and our job is to keep F1 together.

‘‘Everybody in the media knows that advertising revenue has dropped significantly, in some cases dramatically.

‘‘It takes a little bit longer in F1 because of the contracts. They don’t do the advertising week to week, they make it a two or three-year contract.

‘‘But don’t be under any illusion that the income is not going to go down. It is already insufficient. You cannot just sit there and pretend it’s not happening, that’s how people go bankrupt.’’