FIA tells Stoddart to 'look at woods, not trees'.

FIA president Max Mosley responded to a 42-page missive from Minardi team boss - and cost-cutting champion - Paul Stoddart by telling the Australian that he and his fellow team principals should look at the wider picture when attempting to formulate further expense-reducing methods.

Suggesting that the group of nine, excluding Ferrari, needed 'to look at the entire wood, not just the odd tree', Mosley claimed that the teams were approaching cost saving in the wrong way. He suggested that, rather than simply cutting the amount of testing that could be carried out - a point over which the nine are at loggerheads with Ferrari - a more appropriate starting point would be to cut the 'running cost per kilometre' and 'reducing the number of people needed to operate the car'.

"Debating how much running (eg testing) to do is secondary," Mosley wrote in his reply to Stoddart's letter, "Indeed, if the cost per kilometre and the number of people were low enough, the cost of testing would become irrelevant."

Mosley admitted that Stoddart's contribution to the debate was 'well intentioned', but was not entirely clear as to what the letter was proposing. Stoddart had previously contacted the FIA to confirm that the show of unity between the nine teams was 'without doubt, the strongest' he had seen, but claimed that the majority of the group felt that, based on the events of the second half of 2004, the governing body was 'working against the teams on most issues, and moving further and further away from the role of an independent regulator'. Furthermore, Stoddart insisted that the purpose of his letter was to 'avert another season of conflict and controversy'.

Mosley identified eight points in Stoddart's 42 pages that were, in his opinion, incorrect or misinformed, and worthy of reply. He also noted that there were further issues with which he did not agree.

Among the bones of contention, Mosley pointed out that the move to 2.4-litre engines, and specifically in 2006, was taken in order to control performance and came from a unanimous Technical Working Group. Stoddart felt that this move was not possible before 2008 as it would require unanimous agreement from the teams. Mosley went on to explain a possible confusion on Stoddart's behalf between Article 8.8 of the Concorde Agreement - which allows changes on grounds of safety - and Article 7.5 - which sets out a procedure for requiring the TWG to make proposals to slow the cars and only gives the FIA power to act should the TWG fail to respond. He also said that 'significant cost savings were a bonus'.

The president also referred Stoddart to Article 6.1 of the secretive document, in response to the Australian's assertion that Mosley's comments regarding the powers of the FIA, TWG and F1 Commission at one of the myriad team meetings were 'blatantly incorrect'. Stoddart's letter claimed that the latter could not be bypassed by the FIA, something that Mosley clearly disagreed with.

In a separate document, issued in conjunction with his reply, the president felt it 'useful to point out' that the safety measures introduced by the FIA last autumn had the unanimous support of the teams for two of the three elements - aerodynamic changes and increase in expected tyre life - while a 70 per cent majority backed the altered engine rules.

The issue of a single-tyre supplier, something proposed by the FIA, also came under scrutiny in Mosley's letter, with the president claiming that Stoddart had 'omitted to mention that the proposal was stopped by a group of teams who, having at first agreed to a single supplier, got together to veto the idea a few weeks later'. In explaining why a similar proposal, made in October 2004, was unlikely to have any effect in time for the 2006 season, the president highlighted the problems the FIA had encountered while trying to impose a similar restriction on its international kart championship, specifically opposition presented by 'the dangers and complexities of European competition law'.

"It was very time-consuming and expensive," he commented, "In Formula One, there was clearly a strong possibility of a challenge, and our specialist lawyers needed time to prepare our position before we passed a formal rule and issued an invitation to tender. Any challenge would be to the rule and/or the invitation, and it is essential to get both of these right There was time to deal with this for 2006 when I suggested a single supplier in May 2004. By October, it was too late."

On the same topic, Mosley was adamant that, even if the matter had been voted on at the contentiously cancelled F1 Commission meeting scheduled for early December, it would not have stood a chance of being implemented for 2006.

"Until it was cancelled, the teams showed no interest in the meeting scheduled for 9 December," he insisted, "Had, as you suggest, the Commission voted on 9 December for a single tyre supplier for 2006, the World Motor Sport Council would undoubtedly have refused and sent the question back to the Commission for the reasons set out above."

Concluding his reply, Mosley said that he hoped that the list of possible cost reducing ideas that had been sent to the teams on 20 January - ahead of the abortive team meeting that only Ferrari attended - would have made it clear that 'as far as the FIA is concerned, everything is open for discussion', and that the governing body remained 'entirely neutral in its approach to the teams'.

Among those proposals, which Mosley pointedly highlighted that Stoddart was not in attendance to discuss, the FIA said that it was 'strongly in favour of a single tyre supplier and an FIA-regulated restriction on testing, based on mileage rather than days.