Brawn: Other teams' selfishness killed SAF1.

Ross Brawn has suggested Super Aguri's demise was due in no small part to its fellow teams' instinct for self-preservation over the health of the sport.

The Japanese minnows folded earlier this month, after two potential buy-out deals both crumbled [see separate story - click here]. Brawn has argued that those teams who have traditionally opposed the running of customer cars within the top flight - with Super Aguri receiving 'customer' backing from parent company Honda since 2006, racing with old versions of the Brackley-based squad's chassis' - were prioritising their own needs over the greater needs of the sport.

Following Super Aguri's collapse ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix, just 20 cars now remain on the grid for the first time since 2005 - only eight of them non-manufacturer entries, in the shape of Williams, Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Toro Rosso and Force India. Indeed, there is the potential for further diminishment as Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz has expressed his desire to sell off the second-string STR concern before F1's governing Concorde Agreement outlaws all customer cars as of 2010, stipulating that all teams must build their own cars.

This rule caused Prodrive - which had planned to run customer McLarens after gaining the twelfth and final entry into the uppermost echelon - to subsequently backtrack on its grand prix ambitions. Brawn has claimed that the current regulations mean only major car manufacturers would have the resources to start up new F1 outfits.

"There are a number of teams who felt aggrieved by the possibility that non-constructors could compete in the future," Honda's team principal told ITV Sport. "They saw situations where they felt their [sponsorship] rates would be undermined.

"They were really looking at self-preservation rather than what was in the best interests of Formula 1.

"I think it's extremely difficult to see a privateer coming in because of the investment and the facilities needed, but it's viable for a lot of manufacturers at the moment, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be viable for other manufacturers in the future."

Those views were echoed by Honda CEO Nick Fry, who suggested the top flight should endeavour to attract interest from major global marques who possess the necessary funding to be able to stay around for the foreseeable future, rather than just a handful of years as has been the case over the past decade or so with the likes of Super Aguri, Prost, Simtek, Pacific and Forti Corse among others.

Though the loophole in the regulations that allowed for customer cars to remain in the first place received stern opposition from independent entries such as Williams, the Grove-based squad's team founder Frank Williams argued the current economic climate within F1 is the greatest stumbling block for potential newcomers - a standpoint shared by Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner and BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen, both of whom stressed the urgent necessity to bring spiralling costs back under control again.

"If a privateer was trying to enter, financially you would find it very difficult right now to raise money, to raise capital, and I would imagine that's what Aguri's problem was," 66-year-old Williams expressed in an interview with ITV F1. "He just couldn't find the money.

"We have a Japanese driver, never yet found a penny of sponsorship for him in Japan, and that's much cheaper than actually creating a team."

A budget cap is set to be introduced by the FIA next year which, according to German publication Auto Motor und Sport, will be implemented in three stages. In 2009, the cap is expected to be around EUR150 million, reducing to EUR130 million in 2010 and EUR110 million in 2011. Driver and team boss salaries, as well as engine and marketing costs, are not believed to fall under the restrictions.