Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has admitted for the first time that a breakaway championship, removed from the influence of the FIA and its under-fire president Max Mosley, could become a reality.
Ecclestone has been strongly advocating the signing of a new Concorde agreement between F1 teams, his own Formula One Management and the FIA to set out the guidelines under which the sport is run. But the deal remains unsigned, with disagreements about its content rife between the interested parties.
"What the FIA doesn't have, which is the most important thing for them, is an agreement with the teams they would have with the Concorde Agreement," he told
. "The teams can do what they like. At the moment what we are trying to do, to keep the sponsors happy, is say we can't break away but it could well be that that will happen."
Ecclestone, who called for Mosley to step down after lurid tabloid allegations about his private life surfaced, has repeatedly distanced himself from rumours of a Formula One breakaway.
"There is no agreement between the teams and the FIA," he added. "There is a commercial agreement that has been signed by the teams and Formula One Management, so the teams can do what they like."
Eccelstone, who met with team principals ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix apparently to discuss the Concorde agreement - he denied at the time that there were talks about a breakaway championship - also appeared to warn Mosley that a withdrawal by F1 from the FIA umbrella could be a potentially harmful to the governing body's future.
"I am responsible to our investors who have an awful lot of money invested," he continued. And I am responsible to all the teams and manufacturers, who have an awful lot of money invested. Max is responsible to the people in wherever who have no money invested and nor has the FIA got money invested.
"All they've got is the money that comes from Formula One. If there was no Formula One, the FIA would be in serious trouble."