The Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA), which was created to give the teams a unanimous voice within the sport, looks to be in crisis.
Two key team principals have questioned the need for the association if decisions cannot be agreed upon, following a meeting in Korea in which a solution to the rumoured overspend by some teams as governed by the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA), couldn’t be found.
Red Bull’s Christian Horner said the group had “reached a crossroads” and it needed to resolve some issues if it is to continue.
“I think that FOTA has reached the crossroads where it needs to deal with some of the key issues moving forward or we’ll stop. It’s as simple as that,” he told Reuters.
“The principal issues are obviously the Concorde Agreement, the direction that goes in, and fundamentally the RRA.
“If we can’t find agreement within FOTA on that then what is the purpose of FOTA?”
Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali also questioned the future of the organisation.
“What we have said about RRA is that I think we are in a situation where we take a certain direction, or we recognise that there is an element of mistrust between teams that is not good,” he told Autosport.
“On top of that, what we said is really if this [mistrust] will come out of FOTA activity then what is FOTA all about?
“We know the reason why FOTA started, and now we need to understand if FOTA is still needed. What are the objectives of the future of FOTA, if there is a future for FOTA?”
McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh, who has been the chairman of FOTA for two years, defended the association which, according to him, has brought about positive changes in its short existence, but admitted the end could be near if the teams agreed it was no longer needed.
“We are an association that generally required unanimity to go forward on lots of these strategic issues and we are a sport full of egos, personalities, competitiveness and paranoia, but so far what has been achieved is fantastic.
“We have genuinely bought costs down for the big teams, we have arrested a number of things – things like DRS came out of FOTA, and things like Fans’ Forums, but you can never do enough. F1 doesn’t do enough for the fans, it doesn’t do enough to promote itself, but FOTA has contributed.
“There are people around who don’t want FOTA to be here I am sure, and ultimately the people that count are the teams. So if the teams reach a decision that, for the time being, we don’t need it, then great. We will go and do something different.”
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