ON THE LIMIT; REALITY HITS FORMULA ONE.(NEWS)

Byline: NIGEL ROEBUCK

When Max Mosley addressed the Motorsport Business Forum in Monaco on Dec. 10, his tone was grave: Formula One faced a crisis, the FIA president said, and while he expected it would survive, nothing was certain.

F1 long has been the land of plenty, the place of $50 million driver retainers andlest we forget$100 million fines. But only an idiot could believe in its immunity from the financial meltdown visited upon us all, and in early December, Honda quit the sport.

Mosley suggested that other manufacturers might follow suit, but that now seems unlikely. Toyota and Renault, believed to be on the verge of quitting, confirmed that they remained committed. For now, anyway.

Mosley then met with the recently founded Formula One Teams Associa-tion, and by all accounts, it was the most harmonious get-together anyone could remember. Expediency can do that.

At issue was F1's very survival, and for once, all those present had a common interest. Costs had to decrease dramatically, and the meeting produced a plan, whose every detail was ratified the following day by the World Motor Sport Council. The changes are far-reaching, but they stop short of the standardengine requirement Mosley threatened to introduceand which, according to Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, would have driven his company from the sport.

What Mosley truly wanted was a spur for the manufacturers to agree to rigorous restrictions on engine specification and, crucially, to supply those engines cheaply to teams such as Williams F1.