F1: Lotus boss hits back at Ecclestone

Lotus owner Gerard Lopez is furious that Bernie Ecclestone blamed small Formula 1 teams for their financial problems when bigger outfits blocked cost-cutting proposals and will not sacrifice income.

"We don't control that cost basis," he said. "I can only decide to make less wings [for aerodynamic developments], which we do. But I cannot decide the [cost of the] total engine package, which is 40 million euros [$99m], which used to be eight million. I can't decide to change that.

"I actually voted against the engines, so how can I be made responsible for this situation?"

He believes big teams bear ultimate responsibility for causing budgets to spiral out of control.

"The finger should point at other teams who are unwilling to change the system," said an angry Lopez, who has led talks with Ecclestone to try to find a solution. "Nobody speaks about that. Nobody speaks about the fact we never asked for more money: we asked for less costs. And now we are being finger-pointed to solve it differently.

"Well, charge us a normal amount of money to be here. We are promoting people who are getting more money by promoting the engines. It's quite ridiculous we are having this discussion."

Although Ecclestone has offered no solution to the problems, Lopez still believes something can get done.

"I'm not resigned, so we'll see. The future is going to tell us," he added. "The sport is not exactly well. We'll see what happens.

"You've got 900 million dollars that go into the sport – I still can't see why we are losing teams."