What happened to Pheonix / prost

[JR Ewing]

I would have thought that the reasons for the deposit system are even more relevant now with teams going bust - that's the whole point of it - to make sure you can do the season and not have new entrants dropping out and making F1 look v bad

[Armco Bender]

Trouble is you need obscene amounts of money to compete any more.Even $48 million deposit is a lot of money just to have lying around.Only 3-4 of the current teams have the finance to compete at the top level.Until they bring back some form of control Formula like CART your always going to have the richest team(s) winning and the rest just making up the numbers as long as their bank accounts hold out.

[Stephen Green]

Lets be clear about one thing. It is the job of the accountants and auditors to make sure the company is financially secure and solvent, not the FIA. In no other sport that I know of are you ordered to place a huge deposit before being allowed to compete.

[Red]

But they DO need obscene amounts of money to run a F1 team, even for making up the numbers if not for getting great results.

Anyway, it's not FIA's concern if teams enters in F1 every year and the next go bust, but it's the other teams'. JR is right.