FIA rejects FOTA's proposals

The FIA says it will press ahead with its planned £40m budget cap in Formula 1 next year after rejecting alternative cost-cutting proposals put to it by the Formula One Teams’ Association.

Financial representatives of the governing body and the teams’ alliance met in London on Monday to try to thrash out a compromise deal that would break the current deadlock over next year’s rules.

But the FIA said no progress was made because the FOTA representatives refused to discuss the existing 2010 regulations, with the result that there was no “proper dialogue” about the two contrasting approaches.

“As agreed at the meeting of 11 June, FIA financial experts met yesterday with financial experts from FOTA,” the FIA said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the FOTA representatives announced that they had no mandate to discuss the FIA’s 2010 financial regulations.


“Indeed, they were not prepared to discuss regulation at all.

“As a result, the meeting could not achieve its purpose of comparing the FIA’s rules with the FOTA proposals with a view to finding a common position.”

The FIA said it did discuss FOTA’s proposals, which involve reducing spending through specific initiatives rather than an overall budget ceiling – and concluded that they would be ineffective in preventing costs spiralling.

“In default of a proper dialogue, the FOTA financial proposals were discussed but it became clear that these would not be capable of limiting the expenditure of a team which had the resources to outspend its competitors,” the FIA said.

“Another financial arms race would then be inevitable.

“The FIA Financial Regulations therefore remain as published.”

The FIA has imposed a deadline of this Friday for the five teams that it has granted provisional places on the 2010 grid – Brawn GP, Toyota, McLaren, Renault and BMW Sauber – to drop the conditions they attached to their entries.

Since the abandonment of the published financial regulations is one of their two key conditions, it appears increasingly unlikely that the two sides can be reconciled before the deadline.

Meanwhile Ferrari and the two Red Bull teams insist they will not be bound by the FIA’s decision to enter them in the 2010 championship unconditionally, arguing that the contracts on which the governing body based its action are void.