Patronise F1

In a rare act of complaining about something that the FIA have done, the Formula One teams are set to seek talks with the governing body over some issues that they have with the provisional 2010 calendar released earlier this week.

The provisional calendar was announced on Monday after the WMSC hearing into the Renault team and Fixgate, and featured and increase to 19 races, including the return of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and a new event in South Korea.

And although the general shape of the calendar is fine with the teams, they have some issues with logistics and travel arrangement. Particularly for the issue of have the Turkish GP a week after the Monaco race.

The teams are concerned that the races are too close together to allow for transporting their kit by road or sea, and that turning the Turkish race into a "flyaway" event in order to clear up the problem would have repercussions for the next race in Canada.

Toyota talking head John Howett has said that the 2010 schedule would be a major talking point at the next meeting of the Formula One Teams' Association, which will take place before the Singapore GP today.

"There needs to be further outline discussions on the additional race," Howett grumbled, "We need to understand what is envisaged, because logistically there are some challenges that need a major change.

"If you made Turkey a flyaway, you are then struggling with a flyaway to Montreal. There are some issues that we need practically to resolve."

The Canadian GP, which was missed off the schedule this season, is currently planned for June 13th, but this is dependant on final contract details between the track owners and Formula One Management being successful. If the race were to again drop off the calendar, the team issue would be resolved.

The FOTA meeting in Singapore is also expected to discuss the stance on KERS, with the plan to mothball the technology in 2010 thrown into doubt last week when Williams said that they were looking to use the technology next year.