Brawn pledges commitment to FOTA

Williams has already been suspended by FOTA, with Force India set to receive a similar punishment, for having lodged their own entries for next year independent of the conditional applications made by FOTA's other eight members.

With Force India having acted in Turkey this weekend, there had been rumours that Brawn could be next to go it alone and enter unconditionally too.

However, speaking about the matter is Istanbul on Saturday, Brawn made it clear that his team was not wavering in its commitment to FOTA's cause.

"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."

Brawn said he did not expect any other FOTA members to join Williams and Force India in breaking away from the block conditional entry pact.

"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."

Although the FIA and FOTA currently appear to be in a stand off ahead of next Friday's announcement about which teams have got entries to 2010, Brawn remains optimistic the matter could get resolved.

"I think there are interim solutions, but quite clearly if next Friday 10 [new] teams are given an entry in F1, then there is a problem because there is no room for the rest of us. And I don't know what will happen then.

"I hope it doesn't happen because if 10 teams are given an entry then there is a major problem. Even if it is a holding position until we sort this out, I hope we can find a solution."