Formula One news

Mallya: Conditional F1 entry was impossible for us

The Force India Formula 1 team and Williams were both excluded from the FOTA as these teams submitted their entry for the 2010 Formula 1 season on unconditional terms. According to Force India team boss the team had no choice but to submit its entry for next season.

Mallya explained Force India's situation by saying: "As in the case of any other business, when you go to a bank and do an appraisal, they ask what are your sources of income? And as I said any Formula One team has only two sources of income - sponsorship, or FOM income - both of which are conditional on participating in the World Championship. If you don't participate, then you don't necessarily get these streams of income.

"As part of normal documentation we have certain loan covenants. And one of the loan covenants is that we shall enter. I tried to get them to waive this covenant. I subsequently checked with the lawyers, and they gave me an opinion. I shared this all very transparently with FOTA. At the end of the day, in support of FOTA, I can't bust a banking covenant, and neither can I do anything that is illegal. And so on the Friday, well after submitting a conditional entry, I had to send an e-mail to the FIA saying, 'Please treat Force India's entry as unconditional.'

"Subsequently I believe the FOTA executive has had a conference call, and decided that as in the case of Williams, that they were going to suspend Force India as well. Not entirely unanticipated or unexpected."

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