FOTA teams to lodge 2010 entries by deadline
The registration period closes at 11.59pm on Friday night, but Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Renault, Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Brawn and Force India are expected to deliver the paperwork to the FIA in a block FOTA package several hours earlier.
The news comes in the wake of multiple sources reporting that the standoff between the teams' association and the sport's ruling bodies is now over, with the proposed FOTA compromise accepted in principle by Max Mosley.
However, the teams' 2010 entries – particularly the one lodged by Ferrari – may be attached to a proviso that the concerns about governance are also addressed, in exchange for all the teams signing a Concorde agreement through 2012.
At one top team, a usually forthcoming source said there would be "strictly no comment" on this issue until official confirmation.
This confirmation will likely be made concurrently in the form of FOTA and FIA statements.
However, with the 45m euro cap arriving only in 2011, it is now unlikely that technical offerings to new small teams will lead to their debuts next year, when the interim budget cap figure will be 100m.
The exception is David Richards' Prodrive/Aston Martin team, which is expected to lodge an official entry on Friday and link up for a technical collaboration with McLaren-Mercedes.