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F1 bosses form team body in response to new rules

Formula One teams created an association on Tuesday to safeguard their interests in motor racing’s premier sport.

The move comes as motor racing’s governing body, the FIA, gets ready to introduce significant rule changes from as early as next year.

Ferrari said in a statement that the meeting at it’s headquarters was “extremely constructive.”

The team provided no details except that the meeting had produced a unanimous decision to establish a new “Formula 1 Teams Association” to work with the FIA and Formula One Management “to agree upon regulations and commercial conditions which will provide a framework for a strong and dynamic sport.”

Bosses from all 10 current teams met at Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters along with Bernie Ecclestone, who heads Formula One Management, and CVC Capital Investment president Donald McKenzie. CVC is the principal shareholder of F1’s commercial rights.

The 10 F1 team principals decided to meet alongside the sport’s main commercial rights holders after FIA President Max Mosley introduced a plan to decrease team budgets by 50 percent and improve fuel efficiency.

The FIA plans to implement the measures by 2011 and has given the teams three months from the issue of the letter earlier this month to provide proposals or abide by the changes, which aim to make the sport more competitive, cheaper and greener.

Next year F1 plans to move to hybrid technology through KERS, an energy recovery system that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions without effecting performance.

The teams have yet to sign a new “Concorde Agreement,” the confidential commercial document to be signed by the FIA, FOM and teams that governs the workings of the billion-dollar sport.

Those attending the meeting, presided over by Ferrari head Luca di Montezemolo, included McLaren boss Ron Dennis and his team’s chief executive Martin Whitmarsh in a further sign of a new spirit in Formula One.

Ferrari and McLaren were embroiled in a bitter spying controversy last year that cost the Mercedes-powered team all their constructors’ points and a record $100 million fine for having Ferrari data in their possession.
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