'Fighting fund' issue remains unresolved

Stoddart, who calls the fund "fundamental" to smaller teams, was hoping to share the TV money due to the defunct Arrows team with Eddie Jordan, and possibly Peter Sauber. One of the ideas behind the fund is to assist teams which have to pay for their engines in periods of financial difficulty.

But, according to the secretive Concorde Agreement by which F1 is run, the funds should be distributed among all teams. Dennis outlined that nothing had yet been resolved but said that the issue was more complex than has been portrayed in the media.

"Perhaps in my support I could say that the fighting fund that everyone keeps referring to was actually initiated by myself," he said. "There is a belief that all of the teams have pulled away from that, but neither Williams nor McLaren have pulled away from it as a concept. We have, however, made it clear that we are very keen to resolve a number of outstanding issues."

When accused of meanness over money, which is survival money for a team like Minardi, Dennis responded: "People don't understand the issues, first of all. It's $22 million and if you say we are being cheap-skatish, we are talking about the amount of money that is in question to date. If you extrapolate that to the end of the Concorde Agreement, it could be a hundred million dollars plus. All we want is clarity and that clarity is not there."