Max Mosley plans to stay on as FIA president

Max Mosley plans to stay on as president of Formula One's governing body beyond October to ensure the 2010 world championship begins as usual - with the eight teams that announced a rival series on Friday.

The FIA is issuing legal proceedings against Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Brawn GP, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso after accusing them of "serious violations of law" by launching a breakaway championship.

That came after the eight outfits - united as the Formula One Teams Association - could not resolve their difference with FIA over plans to introduce a voluntary 40 million pound (NZ$103 million) budget cap from next season.

Mosley dismissed the move as an attempt to seize control of sport's finances and decision-making bodies.

Mosley does not view himself remaining in power as a barrier to the dispute being settled, arguing while he would be willing to quit, he believes his successor would also be targeted by the powerful teams.

"I don't want to go on for too long, but the difficulty the teams are putting me in is that even if I wanted to stop in October, they are making it very difficult for me to do so," Mosley said ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix. "Everything they are doing is counterproductive. The people in the FIA are saying to me, 'We've all this trouble, we're being attacked. You must stay.'

"Whereas if we didn't have this and we had peace and I said I'd actually like to stop in October, they wouldn't really mind and someone else would come along. I'd be much more likely to step down if there was peace because I am nearly 70."

Mosley believes the breakaway series would cause the collapse of some of the rebel teams.

"There will be a comprise because they can't afford not to run in the Formula One world championship and we are very reluctant to have a Formula One world championship without them," Mosley said. "Some of them are going to disappear because some of the manufactures are going to look at the amount of money they are going to spend.

"So they will find it very difficult to keep pumping money into Formula One. We will lose probably one or two, maybe even three manufacturer teams. We need new teams to make up the space."

He believes the teams' rebellion will dissuade investors.

"It will have an effect on the teams because the sponsors tend to read the press and think there's a much bigger problem than there really is and then they will say to the team, 'Unless you get this sorted out, my board won't authorise the money and so on," Mosley said.

Mosley has been the president of the FIA, the international automobile federation which governs Formula One racing, since 1993.

AP