APRIL 9, 2005

Mosley will have his meeting

The FIA president Max Mosley is going to have his meeting on April 15 about the rules of Formula 1 in 2008, despite the fact that Ferrari will be the only team present. The other teams have announced that they are not going to attend because they are not ready to make their presentation. They say they will have something ready later in the year and that there is no rush because the new rules do not have to be agreed until the end of the year.

The teams argue that even if Mosley and Ferrari come up with their own rules and regulations, these cannot be voted through unless they pass through the Formula 1 Commission. They believe that Clauses 6 and 8 of the Concorde Agreement combine to make it impossible for any rules to be made for 2008 without them being involved in the decision-making process and will no doubt challenge any such attempt by going to arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce, the body which is contracted to regulate any disputes over the meaning of the Concorde Agreement. Arbitration is a lengthy process but in this case there is plenty of time because the new rules must be announced by December 31 2005 and do not come into effect until January 1 2008, a period of two years. Arbitration takes around a year.

If the FIA accepts that the rule-making process must be done by the F1 Commission, the voting structure means that in order for anything to be agreed there must be at least four teams in agreement with everyone else. If six are opposed to any proposal, that proposal cannot be passed.

The Concorde Agreement is a legally-binding commercial contract to which the FIA and the teams are all signatories.