This, according to them is because they felt the FIA was broke their word on the undertakings given at the World Motor Sports Council last month, which the FIA has vehemently claims that the members of FOTA was fully aware that the other 5 non-members of FOTA would need to agree to changes to the rules next season.
FIA released a formal statement that reads “Before FOTA’s decision to walk out of yesterday’s Technical Working Group meeting, the president of the FIA wrote twice to the president of FOTA to remind him that any amendments to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship regulations were subject to the unanimous approval of the five teams that had already entered for next season under the rules as published. This is because of the International Sporting Code and also because the entered teams have a contract with the FIA which not even the General Assembly or the World Council can abrogate. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of motor sport governance knows this. Imagine the uproar if, after the FOTA teams had entered, the World Council were subsequently to change the rules without asking them. It follows that the agreement of the five teams currently entered in the 2010 world championship to all 2010 rule changes is required.”
The FIA claims that the FOTA was not informed only during the meeting and that they were being a little melodramatic in staging a walkout in protest of ignorance. “To suggest that FOTA were only made aware of this during the meetings of yesterday is quite simply untrue. So is the implicit claim that they were all unaware of one of motor sport’s basic principles.”
Another issue which FOTA brought force is that they were being denied their voting rights at this point because they are technically not registered for next season, which the FIA claims that the FOTA were called in to contribute for an agreed set of regulations.
“As things stand, the current members of the F1 Technical and Sporting Working Groups, in relation to 2010, are the teams which have entered the 2010 championship. However the eight FOTA teams were invited to the meetings in order that all 13 teams could agree the 2010 sporting and technical regulations which would then be the so-called ‘stable regulations’ in a new Concorde Agreement. The SWG took place in the morning on this basis and much progress was made. However in the afternoon the FOTA teams walked out of the TWG.”