FIA: FOTA members preventing deal
| By Jonathan Noble |
Monday, June 15th 2009, 10:24 GMT |
The FIA has blamed factions within the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) for the failure to find a settlement in the row over the future of the sport - after revealing on Monday that it believed it had an agreement in place last week.
In a statement issued on Monday morning, the FIA said that at a get-together with four members of FOTA last week a deal was reached for a way forward - but this subsequently failed to reach fruition.
"During the meeting FOTA acknowledged that the FIA wanted to encourage the introduction of new teams in the championship to maintain its vitality and economic viability in the long term," said the FIA.
"Agreement was reached on technical regulations for 2010 which offered assistance for new teams from the currently competing teams in several key areas.
"It was also agreed that the objectives of FOTA and the FIA on cost reduction were now very close and that financial experts from both sides should meet at the earliest opportunity to finalise the details.
"It was proposed by the FIA that any perceived governance and stability issues could best be eliminated by extending the 1998 Concorde Agreement until 2014 thus avoiding lengthy negotiations for a new agreement. This was well received by those present who undertook to report the suggestion to the other FOTA members."
The FIA has blamed members of FOTA for failing to act on this agreement - and claims that some are determined to see talks fail even though this will hurt F1.
"The FIA believed it had participated in a very constructive meeting with a large measure of agreement. The FIA was therefore astonished to learn that certain FOTA members not present at the meeting have falsely claimed that nothing was agreed and that the meeting had been a waste of time.
"There is clearly an element in FOTA which is determined to prevent any agreement being reached regardless of the damage this may cause to the sport."
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