The FIA says that Formula 1 teams cannot miss any races.
“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” the FIA said in a statement.
The Concorde Agreement apparently has a clause (13.5) which states that if a team has failed to participate in more than three events in the same FIA F1 Championship it is considered to have withdrawn from the championship. This is not apparently a get-out clause, as some have been reading it, as another clause in the agreement (believed to be 4.1) contains an undertaking that each team will participate in every event of the FIA F1 Championship each year for the duration of the term of the agreement. In order to achieve this the cars must be presented for scrutineering and there must be efforts made to ensure that the teams actively take part – on the understanding that they have not been banned; prevented from arriving by genuine force majeure such as war, insurrection, earthquake, riot, fire or flood; or stopped from getting there because of the failure of transportation provided by the commercial rights holder.
Not having the money or not having a finished car is not a good enough excuse, even if a supplier has failed to deliver. However, the three strikes and you are out rule kicks in if a team does fail to make it to each race.
Alright then. We will have 12 teams on the grid in Bahrain. No Campos. No USF1.
Half of newbies allowed in by Mr. Mosley fold before even seeing their car in one piece.
F1 is indeed full of intrigue.
The FIA should go check out Campos and USF1 now and see exactly where they are with the cars.
If they cant compete then another more deserving team should get the slot.
Having said that, i wish both teams well.
Campos seem like they are trying hard, so give them credit, it would be a shame if dont see Bruno Senna on the grid as i think he could turn out to be a talented young driver. Not sure whats going on at USF1 though.. do they even have a tub built? All seems a bit fishy at USF1. Hhmmmmm..
I’m not to impressed that the success or failure of 2 Formula 1 teams is down to a clause in a document that is not public. Formula 1 would be better served if the entire Concorde agreement were made public.
Well talk about mixed messages – am I right in understanding then that they CAN miss up to 3 races before being booted out altogether but they will get penalties if they do so?
Or is there a subtext I’m missing – is this an attempt to kill off USF1 and/or Campos under the realisation that neither team is likely to achieve anything anyway – a mercy killing if you will -and give the StefanGP effort a green light?
What I mean is that it looks like USF1 and Campos are dead in the water regardless, but StefanGP have SOME hope – but StefanGP need some kind of certainty that they’ll be let in in order for this to happen.
Altogether I fear all 3 will fail – am undecided if this is a good thing or not. 11 teams is fine; a 12th or 13th team would be nice, but not if they’re going to be reminiscent of the Andrea Moda/Life/Lola(1997)s of the world
Transparency would be great here – particularly given the opportunity Todt has to clear away all of the intrigue of the past nearly twenty years – lets hope that he really believes in bringing the sport into the 21st century.
In other words – publish the agreement in full – that way all daft interpretations of ‘leaks’ would be null and void and we could get back to the on-circuit action without fearing post-result arguments…
Tom,
The USF1 tub was built ages ago – there’s a video of them doing on their You Tube channel.
I think that as there is no mention of what the penalty’s might be it just sends the message to Campos and USF1 that the time for BS is over and a decision is required. In or out?
I suspect that the “Ken and Barbie” show will be over quite soon. Unless they can buy the Dallara they have no chance of making the first race’s. A shame as the USA does need a F1 team and this mess will have set the whole F1 ambitions of people in the US back a long way.
An interesting question, what about the FIA folks that went and looked at USF1 around Christmas time and pronounced that “they are the real thing” I hope that some of the people that were the flag wavers will now acknowledge that they knew nothing about how a F1 car is built and run, which would also beg the next question, “What are they doing running the FIA?”
I suspect that Mr Hurley wont be happy, but he will, unfortunately, be sending a very strong message to any rich fans that might follow him that F1 is not for the mid rich.
It’s not uncommon for a team to miss Friday morning practice. This has happened before.
If a team misses Friday afternoon will there be a penalty? Surely if there is a problem with a car a team couldn’t run.
Is it necessary to compete in Saturday morning practise? I can’t imagine a rule that says you must take part in practise. Is there?
What about qualifying? Sure Mark Webber missed qualifying at the Japanese GP after his crash. Is it essestial to take part?
And the race? Teams are not required to take part? You could retire on safety grounds before a race?
I think you could miss a race without any problem. It will happen, and there will be no penalty. It isn’t in the rules. A team could just send a single representative to the race.
Joe,
What is the drop dead date for shipping cars to Bahrain? That’s D-Day for Campos Meta and USF1.
And wouldn’t it be convenient if Stefan GP were sitting idly by in the Gulf, when lo and behold, one of the new teams literally misses the boat.
Suppose the FIA would just have to let them race…..
This makes sense to me.
As a spectator I’d be upset if I spent all the money to fly from New York to Melbourne, bought some nice tickets and a few teams decided not to turn up without any ramifications.
I for one and excited to see USF1. If they don’t make it then it’s no one but their own fault.
A continuing legacy from dear departed Max. If the franchises had been awarded to Prodrive and Lola would we be having this debate?
The real subtext is why these two highly qualified teams were overlooked in the first place. The miss three races and your out clause was built in with the knowledge that they did not select the best qualified teams and their likely would be at least two failures.
And all this in spite of the highly touted reduced costs; teams STILL can’t find sponsors. Renault have none to speak of, Virgin is still looking for money, and Lotus is government funded.
If Stefan GP can prove funding is in place for the season, let them in and preemptively bounce either or both Campos and USF1.
i’m still unclear as to exactly what that means. they are obliged to take part in every event… but won’t be kicked out until they miss 3. so it’s up to the FIA to decide on the punishment for the teams for ‘infringement of the concorde agreement and FIA regulations’.
so what can the FIA do to financially struggling teams who can’t make it to the first few races – obviously a fine is (hopefully) out of the question. minus championship points? a light slap on the wrist?
Why did Jean tell the world via a press briefing two days ago that the new teams could miss three races and then say the opposite today, citing the Concorde Agreement on both occasions? This indicates that he doesn’t know the Agreement well enough to comment on it, is deliberately attempting to mislead the media or is trying to start a fight on this subject. I tried to find a positive possibility out of such an abrupt U-turn, but there doesn’t seem to be one.
One of the two statements, if not both, was a bad move. Maybe Jean should have continued to be quiet, then the likes of me wouldn’t have the impression that he is going to be as untrustworthy as Max Mosley when it comes to information…
Isn’t it slightly irritating that the President of the the same federation that issued this clarification said quite the opposite during a press briefing a couple of days ago?
Joe,
Hypothetically, if USF1 and Campos (and I’m only picking them because of the current ambiguity over their viability) did go out of business and were unable to compete past this season, do you think the FIA would open up the re-entry process and consider entries that were previously turned down? I’m thinking particularly of the Prodrive, Lola and Epsilon Euskadi entries that seemed the best of the rejected applications last year – and Stefan GP, who seem hell-bent on getting into F1 this year anyway!
I read somewhere that USF1 will
buy the Dallara cars. Should have
bought the Toyotas perhaps.
Rob A makes a point; there can be little doubt now that even if USF1 and Campos get to the grid they will almost definitely be embarrasingly slow. Back to pre-qualifying anyone?
The degree of perfection at which all the established teams now operate could again see just 2 seconds covering the first 16 cars. Lotus and Virgin (the new Minardis) will probably end up a couple of seconds back but expect USF1 and Campos three or more seconds behind behind them and getting lapped by the first 16 every few laps. Not a good look.
And isn’t anybody from FOM or FIA actually going out to visit these two wannabe teams to cut through the spin b/s and find out what the hell is really going on?
Oh and thanks for all that due dilligence to handpick these wonderful new teams Mr Mosely. NOT!
This is a very mixed message coming from the FIA. So can you miss three races or not?
I get the impression now that all teams would have to do at minimum the same as Arrows that time, ie turn up, run the cars through one lap of practice, pack up and go home. So we will see Campos and US-F1 in some form I expect, even if it is just Peter Windsor doing a lap in his Avis rentacar.
From a personal point of view, I wish both teams the best. Campos seem to be trying and some promises failed to materialise. As for US-F1, it would be great for a team to come in and open the market. I appreciate there are plenty of US based F1 fans but I am sure fans of the other open-wheeled series would warm to F1 as well.