Formula 1 has descended in further acrimony over the FIA's budget cap with Scuderia Ferrari heading to the French courts in a concerted effort to prevent the proposals that will drastically slash costs going ahead for 2010. Ferrari, along with the Renault, Toyota and Red Bull teams, have said that they are likely to withdraw from the F1 World Championship at the end of this year if the FIA's new plans to limit the teams' annual spending to £40 million go into action, and with all sides holding firmly entrenched positions there seems little area to compromise at present.

From the FIA's side, the impetus is there to push ahead with the budget cap to cut costs with several teams of the grid struggling financially, and with a number of other teams expressing an interest in making the step to F1, the grid next year could be bolstered with newcomers including USGP, Prodrive, race car constructor Lola, and British F3 team Litespeed, meaning that the FIA has the numbers on its side. Ferrari believe that they have a right to veto the decision making process and are questioning the legality of the FIA's new proposals.

A meeting on Friday at Heathrow been the teams, Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone to address this controversial issue failed to make any headway. "There has been no compromise at all," Max Mosley, the FIA President said late last week after meeting the teams. "As things stand the teams have gone to see if they can come up with something better than the cost cap. They asked for a fortnight but I have told them it will have to be sooner than that. We explained we cannot put back the entry date of May 29, as this has all been published, and we cannot disadvantage the potential new teams who will come in. But we are prepared to listen to whatever they have to say."

Ferrari President and FOTA boss Luca di Montezemolo who was unexpectedly absent from the meeting at Heathrow due to the death of his father. According to Mosley he heard about Ferrari's decision to contest the budget cap in the French courts via text message during the meeting. He immediately informed the teams present of this only to find out that Ferrari's representative at the meeting, team principal Stefano Domenicali, was unaware of this new development. "I thought that was quite original," Mosley said, "to send a team principal in without informing him of his team’s intentions. I think he was slightly embarrassed." However he believes that Ferrari wants to stay in F1, "If they wanted to go, you would think they would just go, and yet they are trying to get the rules changed."