Alan Baldwin LONDON — Formula One must bring rising costs under control to help struggling teams race on in tough economic circumstances, even if talk of impending crisis is wide of the mark, principals agree. The folding of Spanish-based HRT since the end of last season owed as much to the economic troubles of the team's debt-stricken homeland as to its lack of success on the track but it still flashed up warning signs. "What one hears is that a lot of teams are facing a challenging financial situation, some more and some less," Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn told Reuters at this week's first pre-season test in Jerez. "You have to react in some way or other to get the costs down because we are still at a level where maybe if we adapt in some ways you could still have more teams in there," she added. HRT's departure has left 11 teams and 22 cars on the grid, still a relatively healthy number with commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone telling Reuters in December that he would be perfectly happy with 10 teams. Some new sponsors have appeared on the 2013 cars making their test debut in Spain this week, such as BlackBerry with Mercedes, but there is no obvious clamor of major global companies looking to come in. If all looks rosy - or purple thanks to a changed livery reflecting new title sponsor Infiniti - at champions Red Bull under the ownership of Austrian energy drinks billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, it is less healthy elsewhere. All the teams are European-based and there are regular whispers and rumors about a number of them struggling with budgets, particularly with rising costs associated with a completely new V6 engine and rule changes scheduled for 2014. "We've taken some measures but I still think it is going to be tough for some of the teams to have a viable business model for a few years," McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh told reporters. Marussia's John Booth, whose tail-end team have the smallest estimated annual budget of around $60 million, detected echoes from a few years back when the exit of major car manufacturers like Toyota, Honda and BMW led to a 'resource restriction agreement' that has since lapsed. "It (the sport) had to come to its senses a little bit," he told Reuters. "Maybe we are going through that period again. "I don't think it's a crisis, (but) maybe re-alignment is required." Formula One, whose planned $3 billion flotation was put on hold last year, is to all appearances a money-spinner that was expected to generate revenues of $2 billion in 2012. Yet much of that cash flows out of the increasingly global sport, whose European heartland is suffering and whose teams have for years demanded a far greater share of the revenues. There has been some unease at the amount of time it took for the Nuerburgring to agree a deal to host this year's German Grand Prix, with the home race for Red Bull's triple champion Sebastian Vettel on July 7 being finalized only late last month. A 20th slot on the calendar, left empty for an unspecified European round after the postponement to 2014 of a planned Grand Prix in New Jersey, has gone unfilled - although there is a waiting list outside Europe for future races - after Turkey baulked at the price and finances proved an obstacle elsewhere. — Reuters
