Formula 1 teams are told FIA has no plans for single fuel supplier

In a statement issued after the FIA's World Motor Sport Council meeting in Croatia last Friday, motor racing's governing body announced that a new tender process was being introduced in F1 for tyres and fuel.

While the tyre issue is no surprise, with Pirelli set to continue, teams were uneasy about the idea of there being just a single fuel supplier.

For as well as the technical implications of teams and manufacturers being forced to work with standard specification fuel, oil companies also deliver significant commercial revenue to their partner teams because of the promotional benefits of being involved in F1.

With a number of teams unhappy at the prospect of losing fuel partners, sources have revealed that the FIA has now clarified that the statement made after the WMSC hearing was a mistake.

Instead of setting out on a path for there to be a fuel supplier tender, sources have revealed the FIA's secretary general Pierre de Connick has written to teams emphasising that the governing body is not pursuing that route.

Instead, the FIA statement was intended to make it explicit that any future tenders in F1 will always be handled by the governing body first - rather than it reacting after commercial deals have been put in place.

Pirelli's next F1 contract has been surrounded in controversy because the Italian tyre company agreed a long-term commercial deal with Bernie Ecclestone, as well as contracts with the teams, before it finalised matters with the FIA.