Ferrari launch attack on Mosley and new F1 teams

Ferrari has launched a stinging attack on the new teams joining the Formula 1 circus this season and Max Mosley, the former president of the FIA, accusing him of waging a "holy war" on the sport.

In an incendiary article posted on the manfacturer's website less than three weeks before the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ferrari criticises Mosley for his determination to get smaller teams into F1 and questions whether some of the new teams will ever make it onto the grid.

Pre-season testing began at the start of the month and, as Ferrari point out, two teams, Campos Meta and USF1, have yet to turn up. The article also questions the competitiveness of the two new outfits that have shown up, Lotus and Virgin, while lamenting the departure of manufacturers BMW and Toyota from F1.

The piece appears to suggest that Bernie Ecclestone has bailed out Campos, referring to "a sudden cash injection from a munificent white knight, well used to this sort of last minute rescue deal". And it says the USF1 team "appears to have gone into hiding", but adds that they "still have the impudence to claim that everything is hunky-dory under the starry stripy sky".

Ferrari also rounds on Stefan GP, a Serbian outfit that has bought the assets of the defunct Toyota team and is hoping to step in should one of the other teams fail. Ferrari describes the team as "Serbian vultures" who launched a "quixotic legal battle with the FIA" and then "picked the bones of Toyota on its death bed".

"This is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president. The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into Formula 1. This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it," says the article.

"In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault, there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?"

The final round of pre-season testing begins in Barcelona this week where the teams will be hoping for better weather than they experienced in Jerez last time out. Ferrari still appear the strongest of the teams, with Fernando Alonso looking assured and fast behind the wheel although new McLaren driver Jenson Button recorded the fastest lap time at Jerez last week. ·