Ferrari could easily promote itself without F1 - Marchionne

Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne believes that the Italian manufacturer could seek alternate venues for promoting its prestigious brand and products should it decide to leave Formula 1.

In what resembles a veiled threat to quit the sport, Marchionne's comments follow his disapproval of a scheme to grant special powers to Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone as the pair seek to revamp the sport's foundations and rules.

Having invested heavily in the new hybrid- power unit era which started in 2014, the house of Maranello is obviously keen to protect its current investment as talks emerge of a drastic technical rule change which may occur in 2017.

Both Mercedes and Renault have also voiced their concerns over a departure from the current 1.6-litre hybrid engine formula.

"Ferrari is likely to find other ways to provide its ability to win and to race," said Marchionne.

"That would be a great pity of course - nobody wants Ferrari out of F1. F1 would change without Ferrari. It would be something else.

"Nobody would be interested in Formula 1 without Ferrari, not even Mercedes. We are all there to compete."

Marchionne's 'gun to F1's head' stance appears unsubstantial however with the manager admitting that the prospect of Ferrari departing Grand Prix racing is "highly improbable".

He did insist however on the necessity to have all the sport's manufacturers and participants involved in discussions relating to major changes.

"This is something we are inline with Mercedes and also with Renault," Marchionne said.

"We spend hundreds of millions every year, so these are heavy investments. The issue is trying to come up with power units which are affordable to all teams.

"We race during every grand prix to improve ourselves, so we should try to improve our cutting edge and this is a different approach to the one which wants to be imposed.

"If F1 is going to become like NASCAR in the US, well I'm not interested in that. We have a technical advantage from working on the track and so that's why it is so important to us, to use the power units on the track.

"I perfectly understand the problems that other teams may have but this is something FOM has to commit to solving."

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