News APP

NewsApp (Free)

Read news as it happens
Download NewsApp

Available on  gplay

Rediff.com  » Sports » Bernie talks of breakaway F1

Bernie talks of breakaway F1

June 16, 2008 16:31 IST
Get Rediff News in your Inbox:

Formula One teams want to keep the International Automobile Federation (FIA) as their governing body despite continuing unease at the presence of Max Mosley as president.

A senior figure at one of the 10 Formula One teams told Reuters on Saturday that Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone had raised the possibility of a series without the FIA's involvement at a meeting in Montreal.

However he said the suggestion had met with little enthusiasm.

Mosley has been under pressure since March when British tabloid newspaper The News of the World published details and photographs of his involvement in what was described as a Nazi-style sado-masochistic orgy with prostitutes.

The 68-year-old Briton won a confidence vote from an extraordinary general assembly of FIA members in Paris on Tuesday, however, and is now set to remain in office until October 2009.

Ecclestone has called for Mosley to quit before then and the paddock at the Canadian Grand Prix has been full of rumours of a potential breakaway.

Toyota motorsport president John Howett told Reuters that the meeting in Montreal had focused on reaching a deal on a new Concorde Agreement that would bind together the FIA, Ecclestone and the competing teams.

"The primary discussion was the fact that the majority of teams have agreed the financial schedule and detailed legal wording and really the discussion was where we move forward to complete the renewal of the Concorde agreement," he said.

"For most of the teams, they want that to be a tripartite agreement involving the FIA as in the past. We have to wait and see if the FIA will sign that or not," he said.

Howett said the mood amongst the teams was for a deal with the FIA.

"Everybody at the moment is saying we should at least interface with them, or at least Bernie should as technically we have an agreement with him and he has an agreement with the FIA," said the Toyota chief.

He said the involvement of Mosley should not be seen as a hindrance.

"To me it is the FIA, he is the president of the FIA but it should be the FIA that really decides as a body," he said.

Ecclestone has been indicating to media that the teams have been considering a breakaway but on Saturday he told reporters that was not the case.

"Nobody has discussed a breakaway series," he said. "We have been discussing what we are putting in a Concorde Agreement, which we have spent two years trying to get signed."

Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Source: REUTERS
© Copyright 2024 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE 2024

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE 2024