Savings in F1 to exceed 50 or 60 million - Fry

Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry declared that the agreements reached between the Formula One Teams' Association yesterday will bring huge financial savings next year. According to Fry, 50 or 60 million Euros could be saved with the measurements agreed by the FOTA.

Fry was said to the 'BBC': "There's a huge amount of work going on between the teams and I think the changes that were agreed unanimously yesterday will result in cost savings next year in excess of 50 or 60 million Euros.

"The teams are very conscious of the situation and are determined that Formula One should continue to be a fantastic spectacle, with over 600 million people watching it every year. It's a huge business and it's not going to stop over night."

When Fry was asked how much it costs to run a Formula One team for one year, he answered: "Give or take, it's probably 350 million dollars, something like that. It is a lot of money, but big companies enter Formula One because it's a global stage. We have 600 million people, it's similar to the Olympics and World Cup in terms of coverage.

"The reason that huge, very successful companies like Vodafone and the like are involved in Formula One is that it does a fantastic job advertising their product, and that is unchanged. There are very few sports that have the global reach of Formula One."

Today, Honda announced that it will withdraw from Formula One with immediate effect. The team is now searching for a buyer so that it would be able to appear on the grid in 2009.