
[/quote]

Welcome to the forums, Maksutov!
As to the topic at hand, what we're seeing btwn. Sado-Max and FOTA is a game of chicken, which can only hurt the sport as a whole. FOTA(principally Ferrari) want to be able to spend whatever they want without regard, while the FIA is trying to do whatever it can to control those costs. I said it in an earlier post, but it bears repeating,
One of the problems I've noticed in motorsports for years is the continued increase in the costs to the teams in competing, not just in Formula 1 but in many major series across the board.
Look at some of the series that have disappeared from the motorsports map, not just in North America
but internationally............IMSA's GT Championship[which ultimately split into Grand-Am and the ALMS], WSC[World Sportscar Championship], Can-Am, Trans-Am[prior to 2006], DTM[German Touring Cars pre-1996], etc. Eventually one of three things are going to happen.......either FOTA wins and the sport's costs continue to spiral ever-upward, the FIA prevails and puts some form of sanity into the sport(granted, FIA and sanity can be mutally exclusive, but that's for another thread.......

)
or we see a CART/IRL-style split of Formula 1(which could make the AOW split look peaceful.......

).
Now, to be fair, Julian's right when he says that,
the FIA charter was to police the rules, not make them
but then I think, "Okay, who makes the rules then, the FIA or FOTA?" FWIW, I don't trust the teams to make the rules themselves; if their manner of running the sport is anything similar to what I've seen in NA motorsports, I definitely don't care to see that occur. OTOH, the FIA has had a bad habit of screwing up the sport over the years irrespective of what any of the teams can do. Hopefully, they'll find common ground and end this crisis, but it's going to take both sides giving up something for it to happen.[/quote]
Well there you go, you said it, "the FIA has had a bad habit of screwing up the sport over the years irrespective of what any of the teams can do."
Period.
Yes Ferrari and the big teams should be controlled in some way for their expenditure. However even that point can also be argued. Lets take for example the time when McLaren and or Renault and Williams were leading the championships, during those times - even though Ferrari had so much more money at their disposal they failed to deliver which means to tell you that on top of everything, it is not all about money!. Look for example Brawn GP!!! they are a small puny team compared to Ferrari or McLaren.
Nobody gives the right to Ferrari or any other team to control how many people they want to employ to polish the car or suck on the hose. it is their own business.
However what CAN indeed control the overall cost is the rules imposed on construction and manufacturing and performance of the cars which Max Mosley clearly does not know how to do. Every rule he came up with for the past 10 years has led to disaster in cost and/or expenditure. On top of that the rules are very poorly composed with loop holes that allow teams (not necessarily Ferrari) to unfairly exploit the them. See for example the double diffuser, that is only one out of at least a thousand over the past 10 years. So instead of working on one single set of rules and perfecting those rules carefully with input from the teams or manufacturers, Max Mosley has lost it. On top of that he runs FIA with a personal agenda, and frankly one person should not be allowed to rule the formula 1 without even the slightest consideration for external input as the teams have tried to do for many years.
so this is not something that has happened now, it is something that has been happening for years. FOTA is not trying to control the rules but it wants proper governance and stability so that the old fart stops messing with the rules every single year. FOTA are not seeking to make rules but to at least be heard and considered -two heads are always better then one, and it is in good interest of the sport.
So when you say: "who is to make the rules FIA or FOTA?" well firstly that question would be a legitimate if we could consider the FIA to be a governing international body as it is supposed to be. but that is not the case is it? It is a governing person. one old man who is rich and who doesn't want to leave. he makes the rules, he changes them when he wants, how he wants, without consideration, without team work and without governance.