Thanks FIA, Prodrive F1 Team a Dead Duck

[flemke]

LocoBlade said:

Yep I can see your point I guess, but I don't think the FIA are solely to blame. Equally you have to say that Dave Richards jumped the gun somewhat signing up to something that relied on another agreement being passed, and Im sure there were reassurances about the formality of the agreement being signed from Bernie as well (who's the main protagonist of the whole agreement), so he's just as guilty too.

I guess it boils down to the reality that Prodrive saw a rare opportunity to get into F1 and took a punt and they, the FIA and Bernie all assumed that the Concorde Agreement would be all sorted by the time they entered, but it all backfired unfortunately.

I don't think that anyone is saying that the FIA are solely to blame, but, as John points out, they must share responsibility for this mess.
The FIA themselves selected the twelfth entrant, right? In doing so, they should have considered all eventualities, not simply a best-case scenario.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

Amongst the rejected applicants for the twelfth spot were Jordan, Stoddart and Pollock, all of whom had more experience in F1 than Richards did, and two of whom had started from scratch teams that themselves had built their own chassis.

One wonders what would have happened if the FIA had, as it should have done, required the applicant to undertake to build its own chassis in the not-exactly-farfetched case that the Concorde Agreement was extended, rather than being rewritten as Ferrari, FOA, and the FIA had hoped in their back-room dreamworld.

[nioks]

One wonders why Eddie Jordan and Paul Stoddard did indeed make their applications, having already been forced out once by spiraling costs? There must have been some sort of promise over customer cars as, as both these two would know, otherwise the cheapest ticket into the big ring is by buying another team.