Positive vibes as F1 principals meet

The paddock has thus far witnessed divided opinion between the richer teams and those seeking to cut costs by such measures as a ban on testing during the season.

As the F1 bosses emerged from the meeting they refused to discuss specifics but agreed that it had been 'positive.'

Paul Stoddart, boss of the financially-challenged KL Minardi-Asiatech outfit said: "I think we'll see everybody competing next year. And with a real appetite, doing new sponsorship deals and bringing more people into the sport.

"For me it was very pleasing to see 11 people, 12 with Bernie, sitting there with no rancour trying to move the sport forward for everyone. It will take some time to solve the problems; Rome wasn't built in a day. It's hard to find consensus without compromise and we are in the first stages of working on a consensus that will end up with everybody better off. I think we are on the right road to healing it."

Stoddart emphasised that he sees today's meeting as the first of many but that F1 has time on its side.

"If you look at sport in general it is fair to say that Formula 1 is still holding up better than most and long may it continue. I'd be up for one of these meetings every second grand prix because I think it's a good way to deal with problems as they arise. We want to talk about solutions, not problems.

"Remember, we have stable technical regulations for next year, so we do actually have a lot of the year left to talk about how we are going to do things better. We didn't have an agenda today but we will have next time, when hopefully we will get a couple of issues decided, then move onto the next points and so on. I feel more positive than for a long time."