Mosley hints at increased budget cap

FIA president Max Mosley has hinted that the World Motor Sport council has approved an increased budget cap figure in its meeting today.

Although the World Motorsport Council's decisions have yet to be published, Mosley told reporters after the meeting that the original £30 million budget cap figure has been increased following consultation with F1 teams.

"Everything is going ahead as planned," he said. "It's a little bit more than 30 million but we have been successful."

He added that the budget cap is crucial to maintaining competitor numbers in F1 at a healthy level. As well as safeguarding the future of the existing teams, a number of new outfits are looking at coming into F1

"People cannot in the current economic conditions get enough money to survive without it," he said.

A number of teams have expressed an interest in joining F1 next year should the budget cap go ahead, including USF1, Prodrive, Lola and iSport.