Three-time champion and Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda has criticised Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn after her team along with Force India registered a complaint with the European Commission.
The complaint centres around claims the sport is being run like a ‘cartel’ where the larger, richer teams are heavily and unfairly favoured over smaller teams.
Lauda slammed the decision, claiming Sauber knew what it was signing up for and agreed to the terms in advance.
“Sauber is part of a racing community,” he told Swiss weekly Handelszeitung. “They signed the Concorde Agreement where everything was stipulated to the last detail, and then they say ‘This is suddenly not valid.’ I don’t understand the reasoning. Like every other sport, F1 has always had teams that win and teams that are behind.
“You can’t have a team that is steadily accumulating debt and then suddenly as a last resort tries to bring the whole system into question. Everyone is responsible for himself. Sauber should fight first against their own inabilities.”
He then turned his attention to boss Kaltenborn who has gone through some difficult times of late.
“Monisha Kaltenborn has her own way of running a team,” added Lauda.
“In my opinion, there have been quite a few discrepancies that were close to the limit. If drivers who have paid cannot race, or their cars are confiscated before a Grand Prix, that is just stupid,” the Austrian in relation to Giedo van der Garde’s case against the team for failing to honour his contract.
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