- US Grand Prix
Force India discussing US GP boycott
Force India is discussing the possibility of boycotting the United States Grand Prix this weekend in protest at the way the sport is being run.
Reports surfaced on Friday that Lotus, Force India and Sauber are planning to pull out of the race after Caterham and Marussia went into administration and were forced to miss the Austin event. F1's mid-grid teams have made it clear they are not happy with the direction of the sport, with Sauber and Force India consistently campaigning for changes to the way the sport is run, with ideas varying from budget caps to a fairer distribution of prize money.
When asked about a boycott for Sunday's race, Force India's deputy principal Bob Fernley told Sky Sports F1: "That's something that would have to be discussed with the team owners, but certainly there are discussions going on."
Fernley insisted it is a last resort, however, with the priority of all the teams to go racing.
"I would hope to see all the cars on the grid. The last thing Vijay [Mallya, team principal], or anybody else that's a true racer, wants to see is Formula One damaged. But you've also got to remember is the damage being done to these teams and that's an important thing to be taken into consideration.
"The most important thing is to draw attention to the commercial rights holder, and the five teams, that we have lost two teams and that is through poor management and it was unnecessary. It now threatens the integrity of Formula One as we know it as a constructors platform. We're going to have to substitute that with either customer cars or three cars. We don't know what those alternatives are and have no idea whatsoever on the implications of that."
The split between F1's haves and have-nots has been exacerbated by the development of the F1 Strategy Group this year, which only has representatives from six of the teams and exists to formulate the basis of the sport's future. Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Williams and Lotus are members of the group, leaving Force India, Sauber, Marussia and Caterham without any representation.
A boycott would represent a nuclear option for Lotus, Force India and Sauber, who would run the risk of jeopardising their claim to prize money at the end of the season. And for Formula One it would represent a critical blow to its ambitions of breaking the US market, with obvious parallels with the 2005 US Grand Prix when only five teams took part due to safety concerns about Michelin's tyres.
The Times quoted an unnamed team executive as saying a boycott "is 50-50 whether it happens ... what else is there? The small teams have complained for months and warned what was going to happen but no one listened."
On Friday, Lotus' official twitter account denied those reports.
For an absence of doubt, we will be racing on Sunday. That's kinda why we're here.
— Lotus F1 Team (@Lotus_F1Team) October 31, 2014Lotus boss Gerard Lopez told Reuters and Press Association Sport: "I've just found out about the story now, so my answer is no. I've no idea. I have to say a bit surprised. I've had a meeting with them [the other teams] about the cash distribution and so on, and that's it.
"I'm not aware of this. I don't even know where this comes from,"
However, Force India boss Bob Fernley is wary of the politics at play behind the scenes in F1 at the moment.
"Two teams have now gone and I think the commercial rights holder is comfortable to thinking there might be 14 cars next year. How many do they want to lose?," he told Reuters. "He (Bernie Ecclestone) thinks there could be 14 cars next year. So the question is, if we are driving teams out of the business to what agenda is it? And what's the game?"
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