Formula One news
Drivers get together with teams in Turkey
07 June 2009 / PhotosDrivers have met with leading team figures in Turkey in a further, and perhaps final, bid to put an end to the ongoing wrangling between constructors and the FIA. Nine teams officially stand to leave F1 at the end of the year unless the governing body abandons its budget cap scheme, although Sunday marks the first time that the drivers have been directly involved in conversations regarding the matter.
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| Lewis Hamilton was one of three World Champions present at the FOTA/GPDA meeting |
Race day morning at Istanbul Park saw the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) meet with the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) in Toyota's motorhome, with meetings getting underway at 10:30am Turkish time (GMT +2). All current representatives of both groups were included in the meeting with the exception Williams and Force India - which have already submitted unconditional entries for next year and the former suspended from FOTA as a consequence.
"I prefer to race in any other category before the 'new' F1," former double World Champion Fernando Alonso, head of the GPDA, told the Spanish press after the meeting. "A model similar to GP2 or F3 is not interesting for any driver, for any sponsor or for any circuit or television network - in that case it would be a category without any sense. We'll have to see what the options are."
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| This afternoon's pole man, Sebastian Vettel, departs the Toyota motorhome |
With the revealing of the 13 selected teams due next Friday and with potentially 18 current drivers having a possibility of not racing in F1 next year, Alonso continued: "The teams have done their maximum, they have signed up for the 2010 championship, but you cannot suddenly move from a budget of €500m to one of €45m a year; it's possible in three years, which is what the teams are proposing, but it's impossible for them to do more - now the ball is in the FIA's court."
With another threat of a breakaway series very much alive again, FIA president Max Mosley was quoted this week as stating that teams can do as they wish, to which Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali replied in Istanbul, stating that harmony amongst the parties is the best option on a path to a mutual agreement. "If the manufacturers cannot sign up for F1 and they organise a parallel championship, that would be the most interesting," Alonso added, "because you would see the technology and the fastest cars in the world and, in the end, that's where the drivers want to be."
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