FOTA will 'power through' troubles

That is the view of its chairman Martin Whitmarsh, who says that current niggles over the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA), plus the controversial fallout over the circumstances behind HRT's departure, will be resolved swiftly.

"F1 has some of the most competitive people in the world, and getting those people to work together is an interesting challenge," he said on stage at the AUTOSPORT International Show.

"FOTA has achieved a lot so far. There are lots of people who would like FOTA not to exist because it unifies the teams.

"We have some issues, and it is not useful to talk about them in public, but we will power through those.

"The teams understand that a number of them would not be on the grid without FOTA - so there is a lot of goodwill and support for it. We will push the boundaries and come through it."

Whitmarsh believes that the lack of politics in F1 last year - as most media attention was focused on the on-track battle - was good news for the sport. He also insisted that FOTA was doing all it could to help all teams, not just the leading outfits.

"We have been at war," he said about the relationship between teams before FOTA. "Ferrari and McLaren were at war for 30 years and sometimes it got out of control.

"We all love F1, and we all recognise that F1 can be better. But there is no point in just wanting it to be better - we have to take some responsibility.

"We have to help the small teams survive - and there is no point the large teams saying that they don't care what happens to the small teams. A lot of the teams would not be there if it wasn't for FOTA. We need at least 10 teams - and preferably 12 teams.

"The great thing about this last championship was it was tremendously exciting and it went to the end. People were not talking about polemics and scandal in the race. It was a tough championship battle that they could concentrate on - and we are proud we could achieve it. We hope to do it better this year."