Ferrari’s threats to quit Formula 1 has now become even realer, with a french court ruling against them in their injunction against the FIA’s budget cap rules for the 2010 season.

The budget cap system seeks to restrict teams to spending no more than £40m, a meagre figure to big name teams such as Ferrari, Toyota & Renault. Initially, FIA’s president, Max Mosely said there would be greater technical freedom for teams that were within the budget cap and more restrictions for those that went beyond the cap. This second rule has so far been discarded.

Red Bull, Toyota and Renault have also joined Ferrari in its threats to quit F1 if the rules are not changed.  Red Bull currently owns the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rossa teams.

This means that there will potentially be 10 less cars on the 2010 starting grid.

Replacements?

Among the teams that have shown interest in entering this “new F1″ are Wirth Research, Lola, USF1, Epsilon Euskadi, RML, Formtech, Campos and  iSport. All relatively little known about teams with the exception of Lola who have raced in F1 between the years of 1962 to 1997.

So far there has been widespread support for Ferrari in their threat to quit from fans, their two drivers, Kimi Raikkonen & Felipe Massa, past Ferrari drivers and even the drivers from other teams.

Will Ferrari quit?
What will be the consequences for Formula 1?

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. In the mean time, focus will shift to Monaco for this weekend’s Grand Prix.