German Car Zone

Frank Williams has put rival teams on notice that he will take legal action against them if they enter this year’s world championship with what are in effect customer cars.

Scuderia Toro Rosso plans to race a modified version of this year’s Red Bull RB3 (fitted with a Ferrari engine rather than the Renault used by the ‘A’ team) and Super Aguri’s new car is based on the 2006 Honda RA106.

The rules in force for 2007 do not allow chassis to be shared or sold, and Williams is adamant that teams must continue to build their own cars from scratch in order to compete legally.

But FIA president Max Mosley seems to have offered STR and Super Aguri a way round the ban on customer cars by arguing that third-party contractors could supply more than one team.

Red Bull has set up a holding company called Red Bull Technology Ltd, which is ostensibly separate to Red Bull Racing but is based in the next door building at its Milton Keynes headquarters.

Meanwhile a consultancy firm run by Paul White is overseeing design work on Super Aguri’s car.

Williams, however, believes that such expedients flout the spirit, if not the letter, of the regulations, and has threatened to launch arbitration proceedings at the International Chamber of Commerce in Lausanne.

“I am adamantly opposed to chassis sharing and we at Williams do not believe it is legal under the current rules,” Williams told the Guardian newspaper.

“As far as I’m concerned it is absolutely in the regulations in black and white that every team must make its own chassis.”

The dispute is unlikely to be settled before the season-opening race in Melbourne on March 18, because the FIA has indicated that it will only become involved once cars are presented for scrutineering – raising the spectre of the first race being overshadowed by another high-profile political row.

Williams also reiterated his philosophical objection to the whole concept of customer cars, which he believes are inimical to the essence of F1.

“We are what you might call a traditionalist racing team, which believes that we are out there competing for two world championships, one for the best driver in the world and one for the constructor who builds the best car in the world,” he said.

And while the general assumption is that the 2008 regulations will allow teams to buy and sell chassis freely, Williams insists the matter is not cut-and-dried.

He believes that the prohibition on chassis sale in schedule three of the current Concorde Agreement will automatically ‘roll over’ to the successor document currently being drawn up unless the signatories agree otherwise.

“In the presently issued rules for 2008, customer cars are not yet a done deal,” Williams said. (ITV)

Richards hits back at Williams

Prodrive chairman David Richards has refuted Frank Williams’ assertion that the use of customer cars in Formula 1 from 2008 is “not yet a done deal”.

Williams opposes moves to allow chassis sharing between teams, and is ready to take legal action if Scuderia Toro Rosso and Super Aguri go ahead with plans to use modified versions of their sister teams’ cars this year.

And while the general understanding of the 2008 rules is that they will open up a customer market in chassis, allowing teams to buy and sell complete cars, Williams insists that the matter has not yet been settled.

He believes that the prohibition on chassis sale in schedule three of the current Concorde Agreement will automatically ‘roll over’ to the successor document currently being drawn up unless the signatories agree otherwise.

“In the presently issued rules for 2008, customer cars are not yet a done deal,” the veteran team owner told the Guardian.

But Richards, who plans to enter F1 next year with cars designed and built by a partner team, is equally adamant that Williams is flogging a dead horse.

“There is absolutely no question about it: customer cars are permitted in 2008,” he told the newspaper. “Williams have entered the 2008 world championship accepting that condition. It all seems absolutely clear to me.” (ITV)

Damn, costumer cars, engine limitations, spec tyres, + <insert limitation here> ...

Is this F1 the Queen of Motor-Sport or NAS(pec)CAR ?!

Maybe Montoya reckognized some things in advance? j/k...