Neale defends FOTA

12/10/2011

While Bernie Ecclestone widely dismisses FOTA, claiming that the teams will never be fully united, McLaren's Jonathan Neale is adamant that the teams' alliance is working.

"I think there's always going to be a degree of tensions between the teams," he said during this morning's Vodafone McLaren phone-in. "There has been some recent speculation about whether Red Bull are complying or not, but then I think none of us really know because we're not in there - we don't understand how their business operates or how it's divided.

"Quite understandably, many of the teams mask the way in which their public accounts are provided so you can't reverse engineer what's going on inside. Formula One has, for decades, been surrounded with a bit of myth and trust and rumour with other teams; allegations of what are they doing, are people cheating on the circuit, have they invented some wonder device. I think that's all part of the sport.

"In reality the bigger prize is that Formula One does need to stick together," he continued. "FOTA has been very good at capping the cost in many areas and I think it set an ambitious and exciting challenge with the FIA for technology development from 2014 and beyond.

"There will inevitably be pressures and those who would seek to divide the teams as we get ourselves ready for the next round of commercial negotiations," he added, a clear nod the sport's supremo. "There will be tension, of course, everybody wants to do the best for their team. But I think this generation of professional team principals are more than equipped to see the bigger picture as well as fight their own teams quarter."