The BMW Sauber squad will be supported by the Formula One Teams' Association after parent company BMW pulled the plug on their involvement, as the team seeks to secure the team's place on the starting grid for next year.
FOTA have said that they will support the team as much as possible in an attempt to secure the future of the squad in the sport, much as the organisation did for what became Brawn GP, following the withdrawal of Honda last December.
The secretary general of FOTA, Simone Perillo, has said that the teams have already held talks to confirm support for the outfit, which is still based in Sauber's old HQ in Hinwil, Switzerland.
"FOTA Teams have immediately consulted each other and are ready to assure all the necessary support to the Swiss-based team, whose membership in the association is confirmed, to continue its involvement in the F1 Sport," Perillo cried out from the top of FOTA HQ today.
Although BMW will walk away from the sport at the end of 2010, the team will be available for any interested party to buy, and with F1 attracting a mooted 15 entries for the three available grid slots in 2010 earlier this year, there should be no shortage of interested parties.
Indeed, Joan Villadelprat, the boss of Epsilon Euskadi, which were one of the unsuccessful entries for the 2010 championship, has already jumped onto the BMW Sauber corpse while it is still twitching, clutching Epsilon Euskadi stickers to glue over the old BMW ones.
Although he is not interested in buying the team, he has confirmed that his team is still keeping it's F1 project ticking over, and would be able to step in to the championship next year should BMW Sauber collapse completely.
"We are still working on the project, at a much slower rate obviously because we don't have the security [to be on the grid]," Villadelprat shouted at anyone who would listen, "What we can say is that the people who were interested in helping us are still interested, which is something incredible. And if the opportunity arises, we are going to attack it, there's no doubts about it."
The official line from BMW on the future of their team without manufacturer backing was in no way cleared up by a spiel of corporate speak in this morning's press conference by board member Dr. Klaus Draeger. "Since we only made this decision yesterday, we cannot provide any more precise information," he baffled, "We will develop and assess various scenarios and do our best to find a solution for the employees in Hinwil and the staff members involved in the Formula 1 project in Munich."
Meanwhile, the FIA didn't miss a trick to twist the knife as one of it's old manufacturer enemies made a bolt for the exit, releasing a statement that expressed no surprise over the withdrawal due to the foot-dragging approach to cutting costs in the sport. It amounted to erecting a massive billboard outside BMW HQ with the phrase "We told you so" painted on it.
"The FIA regrets the announcement of BMW's intended withdrawal from Formula 1 but is not surprised by it," the statement smugly read, "It has been clear for some time that motor sport cannot ignore the world economic crisis. Car manufacturers cannot be expected to continue to pour large sums of money into Formula 1 when their survival depends on redundancies, plant closures and the support of the taxpayer.
"This is why the FIA prepared regulations to reduce costs drastically. These measures were needed to alleviate the pressure on manufacturers following Honda's withdrawal but also to make it possible for new teams to enter.
It continued: "Had these regulations not been so strongly opposed by a number of team principals, the withdrawal of BMW and further such announcements in the future might have been avoided."
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