Martin Whitmarsh: Fate of Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) rests with teams – Formula 1 news
Chairman of Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) Martin Whitmarsh has stated that the future of this body lies with the teams’ principal heads.
He added that it is their verdicts that will decide the future course of FOTA, whether it should remain intact or not.
FOTA, was formed in 2008 with the objective to negotiate the terms of the new Concorde Agreement and put a cap on the budget of the 11 Formula 1 teams that are a part of this organization.
A meeting has been scheduled at the 2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to sort out matters pertaining to the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA), over which woes were created by some teams.
Ferrari team principal Christian Horner showed grave concerns about it and mentioned that if issues related to RRA don’t get resolved in a timely manner, there are chances that FOTA might dissolve or break apart soon. The meeting at the 2011 Abu Dhabi race
thus holds significance importance to the future of FOTA.
As much as some bigger teams feel FOTA to be an unnecessary organization, there are smaller thriving teams who are still struggling and are in need of FOTA.
Whitmarsh feels that FOTA has played a pivotal role in the growth of many teams and has contributed a lot in their progress ever since its inception.
Highlighting the importance of having FOTA he said, “There are teams here that would openly concede that they would not be here without FOTA. That in itself is a positive, regardless of anything else we want to claim or point to.”
He was agreed that FOTA still has a long way to go, and there is so much that they could have achieved, but could not do so due to various reasons. However, whatever the association has achieved to date, cannot be ignored rather Whitmarsh said that he is
really proud of FOTA’s achievements.
He further added, “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.”
With the teams joining hands and getting united, more can be accomplished in future.
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