F1 Teams Still Looking At Breakaway

Despite a reported peace deal for next year, eight of the major F1 teams are continuing with plans to set up a breakaway championship for 2010.

F1 was thrown into confusion when the eight teams in the rebel umbrella group FOTA were told this week they were not entered in the 2010 championship.

‘We have to keep our options open,” said BMW F1 boss Mario Theissen. ‘We are working in both directions. It is part of the ongoing negotiations and we can only hope it will be sorted out.’

Theissen said the teams had been caught by surprise when FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting told their engineers in the meeting that they could not have an input into a discussion on finalising next year’s rules because they did not have entries.

Whiting’s statement contradicted an announcement by the FIA’s world council on 24th June which listed the eight Fota teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Renault, BMW, Toyota, Brawn, Red Bull and Toro Rosso – as confirmed entries.

That statement had come after Max Mosley, president of F1’s governing body the FIA, had reached a compromise deal with Fota chairman and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo and F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone.

As part of that agreement, the outline of next year’s rules was set, the teams agreed to commit to F1 until 2012, Mosley’s plan for a £40m budget cap was replaced with an agreement to reduce costs to ‘mid-1990s levels’ by Fota’s methods and the FIA president agreed not to stand again for the governing body’s presidence in October’s elections.

Theissen said: ‘It’s somewhat confusing to have been accepted as an entrant and then suddenly it looks different again.’

FOTA said in a statement after this week’s meeting that the FIA’s new stance had ‘put the future of Formula 1 in jeopardy’.

Those left at the meeting were current teams Williams and Force India and the three new teams – Manor, US F1 and Campos.