Mercedes Motorsport Dir Toto Wolff said that Formula 1 has a "huge opportunity to grow under new owners Liberty Media but it must also tread carefully in making changes to the rules," according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Responding to the departure of the sport's 86-year-old CEO Bernie Ecclestone after 40 years in charge and his replacement by American Chase Carey, Wolff said that the future "looked bright." Wolff: "The Ecclestone era ending is a pretty big thing. We need to embrace the future and we shouldn't be too nostalgic about the past. This sport has a huge opportunity for growing bigger and bigger and we could all benefit from this. We need to push in that direction." Wolff warned, however, "that changes needed to be properly evaluated." He said, "We shouldn't mess with our loyal fans and our audiences by implementing rules and regulations that we haven't assessed properly" (REUTERS, 1/26). GMM reported F1 Managing Dir Ross Brawn admitted that Ecclestone's departure "might lead to promoters asking for lower annual race fees." Ecclestone was a "notoriously hard-nosed and unsentimental negotiator when it came to the money collected from grand prix circuit hosts." But Brawn said earlier this week that "embattled race promoters like those in Germany and Britain have a strong future on the calendar" (GMM, 1/26). MOTORSPORT's Adam Cooper reported a budget cap "is one of the areas being explored by the new owners of F1" as they try to put together a "long-term strategy for the sport." Capping expenditure by teams "has been tried several times in the past, but while some cost saving areas have been addressed" -- such as restrictions on testing and the number of personnel at races -- the bigger concept of an overall budget cap "has always been rejected by the big players." Brawn has "made it clear" that reducing expenditure is one of the items on the agenda, "both to help close the gap between the large and small teams, and to ensure that the latter can survive." Brawn also confirmed that "we can expect a revamp of the way income is distributed beyond the end of the current agreements" in '20. He said, "Undoubtedly we are going to have a whole list of objectives, and one of them is to enable small teams to stand on their own two feet" (MOTORSPORT, 1/26).
