FOTA press release

FOTA wish to clarify the situation regarding remarks that have been widely reported in the last few days concerning a meeting between members of FOTA and the Commercial Rights Holder.

The meeting, which took place in London on March 18th, involved John Howett, the Vice President of FOTA, Flavio Briatore in his capacity as chairman of the Commercial Working Group of FOTA and Ron Dennis as a member of the Executive Committee of FOTA as well as Bernie Ecclestone, the Commercial Rights Holder. The FOTA representatives presented the unified views of all FOTA members.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss payment of money owed by CVC (the effective owners of the commercial rights to Formula One) to the teams and relates to agreed sums owing from the 2006, 2007 and 2008 championship years.

FOTA are committed to accelerate the signing of the new Concorde Agreement and, as part of the conditions necessary to obtain the signatures of all the teams, it was necessary to reach a conclusion to this outstanding matter.

During the discussions, any position stated by the members of FOTA who were present was supported by all members.

29-Jul-08: F1 Teams Come Together to Work on Concorde Agreement

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It’s the 29th July 2008, and this is F1 Minute.

Representatives of each of the F1 teams, plus Bernie Ecclestone and a colleague from CVC got together in Italy today to discuss the future of the sport. The meeting took place at the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, and a spokesperson for Ferrari called it “extremely productive.” The most notable outcome for now, is that the teams are going to set up a new group called the Formula One Teams Association to try and sort out the Concorde Agreement with the FIA and FOM. Let’s hope they can achieve something.

The teams agreed on this new group unanimously, which should please Flavio Briatore as he has been reported as saying that things in F1 really need to change. His list of complaints include the fact that they need to have a majority rule, they need a single Director of Operations to represent all the teams, and he would like to see Max Mosley concentrating on his job instead of his personal life. Wouldn’t we all?

That’s all for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.