Doubts cast over Nurburgring GP future

Autosport.com has learned that the FIA's sporting authority in Germany is to be discussed at an extraordinary general meeting of the FIA in Paris in October, in the wake of ADAC's decision to withdraw from all involvement with the governing body earlier this year.

ADAC has been scathing of Mosley over his involvement in a sex scandal and, following his successful vote of confidence in June, the German automobile body said it would no longer cooperate with the FIA as long as Mosley remained in power.

It is understood that that action has now cast doubt on whether the DMSB will continue as Germany's national sporting authority.

A letter from Pierre de Coninck, Secretary General of the FIA (Sport) to members of the WMSC on Friday confirmed that 'the sporting power in Germany' was up for discussion in the meeting.

One possibility is for the WMSC to react to ADAC's stance and install the rival Automobil von Deutschland (AvD) as the German sporting authority instead. AvD owns Hockenheim and also the rights to the 'German Grand Prix' name.

DMSB's loss of power could make it more difficult for ADAC to continue holding the F1 race at Nurburgring, even though the track has an agreement at present to hold the German GP in alternate years to Hockenheim.

Also up for discussion at the WMSC meeting is the future commercial rights for the World Rally Championship, and the national sporting authority in India.

The other major item on the agenda is F1 rules from 2011, with the FIA sticking to its original October date for the discussion of new regulations it wants in place in three year's time.

Max Mosley wrote to the teams in July saying they had three months to come up with some proposals to cut costs and improve racing that could be turned into rules, or the FIA would prepare its own regulations instead.

Although teams have begun the formulation of the new Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA), it is understood there has been little progress so far in actually come up with concrete proposals for the future.

Discussions in Valencia last weekend included the possibility of more sharing of chassis parts, but there was not big support behind that idea.

There were some suggestions that the teams wanted to delay submitting their proposals until January.