Jean Todt says new teams can skip 3 races but FIA says no

So far, both the teams only have 1 driver confirmed. Campos has signed Bruno Senna while USF1 has Jose Maria Lopez on board. Having announced their drivers, they have yet to launch their competing cars and have since missed the first testing round in Valencia. Stefan GP however has ‘taken over’ the cars and technical support from Toyota F1 which have since withdrawn from the competition. Stefan is not yet registered although they have reported to have started testing and moving their equipments to Bahrain.

Todt said "In the last draft of the Concorde Agreement it's written that a team can skip three races. If one of them doesn't make it, it doesn't mean another team comes in. It's up to the FIA to decide if they have the credentials,"

This issue however, has met with an outright rejection from the FIA who claimed that if the teams ‘skip the first three races’ as sanctioned by Todt, they would be in breach of contract. A statement released reads "Following recent reports on the interpretation of clauses in the Concorde Agreement concerning the concept of a team's 'participation' in the FIA Formula One World Championship, the FIA wishes to make the following clarification:

"From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each team that has registered for the championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season.

Any failure to take part, even for just one championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA Regulations."