SCHISM: FOTA to Launch Breakaway Series

The inevitable has now crashed down upon us like Thor's hammer Mjolnir.

Autosport.com's Jonathan Noble has reported that after a four hour meeting Thursday night, the eight teams of FOTA will form a breakaway series.

These eight teams are Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW, Toyota, Brawn, Red Bull and Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Noble quotes a FOTA statement released after the meetings.

"The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series," the statement said.

"This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders."

FOTA states that being ignored and not being listened to by the FIA as part of the problem. They also state the teams were not awarded the amount of money from FOM they should have been getting.

"The wishes of the majority of the teams are ignored. Furthermore, tens of millions of dollars have been withheld from many teams by the commercial rights holder, going back as far as 2006," FOTA's statement iterated. 

The FOTA teams, appear though to have declared their allegiance to the FIA until 2012.

"All the teams have confirmed to the FIA and the commercial rights holder that they are willing to commit until the end of 2012."

You can see the entire article at: Autosport

So what does this all mean to the F1 fan? A lot of questions still need to be answered by FOTA and the FIA. Which people will govern the FOTA series? Which rules will they carry over from the FIA? Which tracks will they visit? And most importantly: how will fans be able to watch this new series?

FOTA's comment on listening to the fans and lowering ticket prices appears to be music to any grand prix racing fan's ears. For a long time now it seems the FIA doesn't listen to the teams it governs, much less their fans.

Ticket prices are more expensive than ever so that would be a welcome change.

FOTA's cryptic statement of pledging support until 2012 seems weird. Isn't that the point of setting up a breakaway series? Why would they declare to stay in F1 until 2012?

The answer is possibly to set up the new series, but also within that three years from 2009-2012 the FIA's and FOTA's differences could be possibly ironed out.

Whatever happens, it appears FOTA is ready to go to war with the FIA and Formula One in the long term. Racing fans will hold their breath and hope the team's are making the right decision.