Barcelona: Toyota will not enter next year’s Formula One championship unless new rules published by the governing body are changed, motorsport president John Howett said on Saturday.

“If nothing changes, we won’t be submitting an entry,” he said at the Spanish Grand Prix when asked about a May 29 deadline. “But I don’t think that is a unique opinion among other competitors.”

Howett is vice-chairman of the Formula One Teams’ Association (Fota) presided over by Ferrari’s president Luca di Montezemolo, a firm critic of the governing body’s plans to introduce an optional $60.19 million budget cap in 2010.

The international automobile federation (FIA) want the cap to encourage new teams to enter and also keep the existing 10 teams on the starting grid after Honda’s abrupt departure last December.

The plan would allow capped teams to operate with far greater technical freedom than those continuing with unlimited budgets. Montezemolo has warned it would create a two-tier championship that could be “fundamentally unfair and perhaps even biased”. The FIA set the deadline last week and said all teams wishing to compete in 2010 must state whether they wanted a cap or not. (Reuters)