Brawn committed to FOTA

Ross Brawn has pledged his total commitment to the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA), ending speculation that his outfit could follow Williams and Force India in lodging its own entry to next year’s championship.

“I understand Frank’s position, Frank had contractual agreements with Bernie and the FIA which we don’t have, so he had some difficulty in that respect," said Brawn about the impact of the Williams entry.

“But the existence of this team was dependent on the support of FOTA teams – McLaren and Mercedes in particular are the reason why we are here, and I think the FOTA initiatives are good.

“We seem to have had a disconnection in terms of liaising and negotiating with the FIA, and that has perhaps been the problem because FOTA has got a lot of good ideas and the FIA has got a lot of good ideas. Hopefully those ideas will be brought together to find a solution.

“We seem to have disconnected somehow in this process and what we need to do is reconnect, and I feel that I want to be part of FOTA. It is a good initiative and I feel I can help more towards finding a solution being a member of FOTA than I can stepping out of it, so I intend to remain within FOTA."

“I don’t think so, I don’t see it going any more than that," he said. “Force India had their reasons which you will have to ask them about, and Frank had his reasons. And it was obviously more difficult for them.

“But I don’t see it fracturing any more, and there is a whole lot of work that FOTA does that is not just this current controversy. There is a whole raft of technical proposals that we have for 2010 which we intend to save a lot of money.

“Next year the FOTA proposal is that we only have three bodywork upgrades during the season – what you start with and then two upgrades during the season. That saves an enormous amount of money because any time that you are doing new bodywork, you are doing this and you are doing that, it is very expensive.

“FOTA proposed homologated gearboxes at 1.5 million Euros for next season, FOTA members are providing engines for teams for 5 million Euros next year, all of those are FOTA initiatives. There is some great stuff that FOTA is doing, we just need to move away from the confrontational situation that we have got in with the FIA."