Nuerburg, Germany, July 9 (DPA) Motorsport’s ruling body, the FIA, responded angrily Thursday to a decision by the eight members of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) to walk out of a meeting to discuss next year’s rules for Formula One.
The meeting Wednesday of the Technical Working Group at the Nuerburgring, where the German Grand Prix takes place this weekend, was supposed to address FOTA’s proposed changes to F1 rules for next year.
However, the FOTA teams left when told they had not entered the 2010 championship and therefore had no voting rights on technical and sporting regulations.
The move ends an unsteady truce between FOTA and the FIA that had lasted since agreement was reached between the two groups on June 24.
The deal reached with the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) in Paris involved Max Mosley standing down as FIA president at the end of his current term and an end to plans for a budget cap, while also requiring the manufacturers to reduce costs and sign up to F1 until 2012.
However, this accord now looks in tatters after FOTA issued a statement in the wake of the walkout, saying the FIA was refusing to treat its members as confirmed entrants for next year’s championship and was denying them any input into the 2010 rules.
“To subsequently go against the will of the WMSC and the detail of the Paris agreement puts the future of Formula One in jeopardy,” said FOTA.
The FIA responded by stating it had been made clear to FOTA that it would not be able to vote in on technical and sporting regulation issues.
“Before FOTA’s decision to walk out of yesterday’s Technical Working Group meeting, the President of the FIA wrote twice to the President of FOTA (Luca di Montezemolo) to remind him that any amendments to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship regulations were subject to the unanimous approval of the five teams that had already entered for next season under the rules as published,” said the FIA in a statement.
“It follows that the agreement of the five teams currently entered in the 2010 World Championship to all 2010 rule changes is required. To suggest that FOTA were only made aware of this during the meetings of yesterday is quite simply untrue. So is the implicit claim that they were all unaware of one of motor sport’s basic principles.”
The FIA also claimed that the eight FOTA teams were invited to the meetings in order that all 13 teams scheduled to compete in next year’s F1 championship could agree the sporting and technical regulations for the 2010 season.
It further stated that the basis for the FIA agreeing to drop plans for a cost cap was the proposal prepared by the Williams team at last month’s British GP at Silverstone which would allow an agreed reduction of expenditure to the level of the early 1990s by the end of 2011 to be dealt with by the teams themselves.
“This reduction was agreed by FOTA and confirmed by them in Paris on 24 June. This would be a private, legally-enforceable contract involving all the teams, but not the FIA,” the organization continued.
“The deal that the FIA reached with FOTA in Paris was to extend the 1998 Concorde Agreement with some minor amendments to the governance section. This would have put in place an F1 Commission to deal with future rules with any major question going to the FIA Senate.”
The eight FOTA teams – Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber, Renault, Toyota, Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso and Brawn GP – have yet to react to the latest statement from the FIA.
FOTA stated after Wednesday’s walkout that no new Concorde Agreement would be permitted before a unanimous approval of the 2010 regulations was achieved.
“However, it is clear to the FOTA teams that the basis of the 2010 technical and sporting regulations was already established in Paris,” FOTA stated.
“At no point in the Paris discussions was any requirement for unanimous agreement on regulations change expressed.
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