Jordan, Red Bull to Attend FIA Meeting

According to an exclusive report in this week's Autosport, the two teams are keen not to align themselves too strongly with the plans for a manufacturer breakaway championship and may have been tempted to the FIA talks by the promise of discussions over changes to the 2005 qualifying format.

Sources claim that although Friday's meeting was originally intended to only talk about 2008 rules, the agenda has now been broadened to include discussions about other subjects - including testing rules and the current qualifying format. These new talks have come at the request of four teams - which suggests that Jordan, Red Bull Racing and Ferrari could still be joined by another outfit.

The inclusion of the two teams could be viewed by some as a potential split in the 'Group of Nine' alliance, but it is believed to be simply a way of the two outfits keeping their future options open for which category they choose to race in in 2008.

Jordan and Red Bull Racing have attended all of the meetings held by the manufacturers pushing for their own series and did skip the famous January 28 FIA meeting this year. Since then, however, the FIA have indicated that they will not slow down their discussions for future rules simply because some teams do not choose to join in.

When the manufacturers issued a statement last week suggesting that the nine teams had agreed not to attend the meeting, the FIA made it clear that this week's meeting would go ahead and all outfits were still invited to attend.

"The meeting will go ahead as planned," an FIA spokesman told Autosport-Atlas. "There is an open invitation to the teams but it is of course up to them whether they wish to accept or not.

"We are very happy to welcome them, we initiated this consultation some time ago so as to be inclusive as possible but, then again, they are not an essential part of the rule making process."