FIA hints at progress as FOTA responds

The FIA has suggested that slight progress has been made in its row with the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) over the future of the sport, after claiming that a response to its request for teams to lodge unconditional entries for 2010 was 'not entirely negative.'

With FIA president Max Mosley having asked FOTA's eight members to let him know by this evening whether or not they would remove the conditions attached to their entries to the 2010 championship, the teams' organisation duly wrote to the governing body.

No details of the contents of the letter have been made public, and FOTA was unwilling to comment about the situation, but it is understood that the teams made it clear that they were not in a position to be able to drop the conditions attached to their entry yet.

However, having laid out clearly in the letter and various attachments what teams would like to see in place for them to commit, the FIA says it has seen some signs of encouragement in the latest stance.

A spokesman for the governing body said: "The FIA has received a letter and various attachments from FOTA, the contents of which are not entirely negative, and we are currently examining the details."

FOTA has been keen not to adopt an aggressive strategy with the governing body over the matter, and believes that the cost cut proposals it has put forward are exactly what is needed to help secure the sport's future.

However, the bigger issue for the teams remains governance of the sport. That is why the signing of a new Concorde Agreement to unify the teams, the FIA and the sport's commercial rights holder is so important.

Toyota vice-chairman John Howett said in Turkey last weekend that sorting out how rules are framed in the future was a priority.

"It's about fundamentally governance; there are also one or two issues of methodology of managing, shall we say, resource control, or reduction," he explained. "And I think the FOTA requests are extremely reasonable."