BMW 'not fixed' on F1

Burkhard Goeschel told the Reuters news agency that BMW - one of the founding members of the GPWC along with Ferrari, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Renault - will only continue if F1 remains an attractive environment in which to compete. This follows the GPWC's announcement during the San Marino Grand Prix that it had withdrawn from negotitations with the sport's commercial rights owner SLEC Holdings, over the future of Formula 1.

"We are committed to motorsports," Goeschel said. "It's not a question of Formula One. If Formula One is going another way which is not congruent to our ideas and values as BMW, then we would change to another kind of motorsport."

"We are not fixed on Formula 1. We want to race in the top league, that's the only question. If it is attractive and interesting for us...we will stay in F1. But if it is not, then we won't do it."

Goeschel said that although the GPWC closed the memorandum of understanding that guaranteed the future of F1 with SLEC Holdings, he believed that there is still a chance that an agreement can be reached.

"We closed the memorandum of understanding because we didn't see any effort from the shareholders of SLEC to realise the task they have," said Goeschel. "Now we are waiting. We want to keep it open, to see the reactions and not to close it with an argument and race our own series. There is room for discussion. If nothing happens, it [a new series] may be one solution."