Ferrari, being Italian, are a company prone to dramatics, and their announcement today that they will quit Formula One unless they are allowed to completely outspend the other teams they compete against and therefore dominate them through entirely fiscal means, should be taken with a large spoon of expresso.

Having been informed that Formula One will be introducing a £40 million budget cap from next season, the Italians are in uproar about how they are supposed to win all the time without being able to buy better engines and drivers than the other teams. Ferrari criticised the initial announcement of a new optional budget cap as ‘fundamentally unfair and perhaps even biased’ and as being liable to create a two-tie, split-level championship of haves and have-nots, whereas anyone else with a rational sense of economic equality would disagree entirely with that statement.

Luca di Montezemelo, the Ferrari team boss said yesterday, or rather shouted while seemingly quite drunk, “Eeees riculus. Oww am i to build a car on 40 millions. I spend zat much alone on silver airrrr dye and unnecessary spectacles for ze crew”

Max Mosley responded to Montezemelo complaints by apparently suggesting that the Italian might inadvertently find himself in one of Mosley’s sex dungeon escapades unless he started to get in line. We won’t quote him however because Cultsha has no desire to end up in court.

The claims by Ferrari are seen as a sneaky Italian means-for-negotiation rather than an actual threat that will be carried out. It’s the equivalent of telling your daughter’s boyfriend that you ‘know’ people in the community, in an attempt to get him to dissapear. Bernie Ecclestone is already starting to capitulate at the thought of not being able to bring in millions of pounds of advertising revenue that he can then profit from and subsequently lose to a wife twice his size.