Although it was believed all teams were united in their efforts to push for a scrap of the budget cap rules for 2010, Williams have apparently broken that deal. Team's CEO Adam Parr insisted, however, that the Grove based team did not intend to brake any pact within the FOTA but solely stand by their commercial agreement with the Formula One Management (FOM).
“The unity of FOTA is of paramount importance to Williams,” said Parr, according to Reuters news agency. “Williams has – and has always maintained – that we have a binding contract with both FOM (Ecclestone's Formula One Management) and the FIA to participate in the world championship from 2008 to 2010.”
“We have been paid in full for our participation and we feel both morally and legally obliged to make it clear that we will participate in Formula One in the future as we have in the past 30 years. We will continue to work within FOTA and with FOM and FIA to find a compromise but no one should be in any doubt about our commitment to the FIA F1 world championship.”
It seems the outcome of the FOTA meeting in Monaco – meaning the letter – was the decision taken by all teams within the aforementioned body to commit to their racing programmes until 2012 on the sole condition the 2010 rules will be revised. In addition, the F1 teams would also agree to signing a new Concorde Agreement.
“We believe that under the leadership of (Ferrari president Luca) di Montezemolo and (Toyota motorsport president) John Howett, FOTA has extracted some very significant concessions from the FIA. These include not only the procedural aspects of the budget cap but also other elements that will enable the higher budget teams to participate,” added Parr.
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