Formula One teams agree to form new body

Formula One teams meeting at Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, Italy, on Tuesday agreed to form an organization to hammer out a new Concorde Agreement to govern the sport. Representatives from each of the 10 teams currently contesting the series will meet with FIA and Formula One Management representatives to reach agreement on operating principles.

Originated in 1981, the Concorde Agreement, named for the Paris address of the International Automobile Federation, expired at the end of 2007. It provided the construct by which teams race and share revenues. Without an agreement, FIA president Max Mosley has asserted that his organization as sanctioning body of the series should assert control.

Series commercial rights holder CVC Capital Partners, represented by Donald McKenzie, and Bernie Ecclestone of Formula One Management, who has spent the past three decades organizing the sport into its current commercial state, attended the meeting.

"The teams have subsequently agreed unanimously that they will establish the new Formula One Teams Association to work with the FIA and FOM to agree upon regulations and commercial conditions which will provide a framework for a strong and dynamic sport," read a statement proffered by Ferrari.

The expired agreement provided that team principals needed to reach consensus before changes to the sport could go forward.

Mosley, lately embattled in a sex scandal, has throughout his 15-year presidency pushed for stronger rules involving car safety. More recently, he has pushed to cut the cost of F1 competition and to promote green causes. One rule change has mandated use of a kinetic energy recovery system by next season, and reduction by half in fuel consumption by 2015. Mosley advocates giving more of the sport's revenues to independent teams and increasing returns for midpack runners. He points to the sport able to accommodate two additional teams as evidence costs are too high.

Mosley, 68, has reiterated he will step down from the presidency when his current term expires, October 2009. Ecclestone, 78, has not indicated a retirement date.

On another front, German firm, Formtech GmbH, has bought the assets of the defunct Super Aguri F1 team with the expectation of supplying Britain's motorsport industry. The company will operate out of Super Aguri's Leafield, England, base.