OCTOBER 23, 2002

Formula 1 teams to meet with FIA

Word is leaking out that there is to be another meeting between team bosses and the FIA on Friday at the federation's London headquarters in Trafalgar Square. This is believed to be a pre-F1 Commission meeting between the teams opposed to the changes being proposed and FIA President Max Mosley. The Commission itself is due to meet in a hotel at Heathrow Airport on Monday. The obvious logic behind this new meeting is to help hammer out a deal which is acceptable to the majority of the teams before the F1 Commission meets. The Friday meeting is likely, therefore, to be a discussion of what can be achieved and how the proposals made can be developed.

The F1 Commission meeting is being billed as the most important meeting in F1 for several years but unless things change between now and Monday there is not much going to be decided as the teams have enough votes to block some of the more radical changes being put forward by the FIA. The meeting on Friday should thus be seen as an attempt to break the log jam in F1 decision-making.