INQUIRER Sports

SILVERSTONE - Brawn GP team chief Ross Brawn said on Friday that Formula One was a sport that belonged "to the people" and not to the teams or any ruling body.

The man behind the rise of the team that now leads this year's championship said people with investments in the sport should be respected, but that did not entitle them to believe they owned Formula One.

Brawn said: "At the present time, there is a very difficult relationship between the teams. I think the general ambition is not to take over Formula One, but teams have a massive investment in and they want that investment respected.

"But Formula One doesn't belong to the teams. I don't believe it belongs to anyone - it belongs to the people. It belongs to all of us and (it is) not a thing which is owned by anybody, like the Olympic Games or the football World Cup. It is an entity in itself.

"And for that reason, it needs respecting and nurturing and needs to be developed."

Brawn spoke out during a news conference following a day of major political upheaval that left Formula One, in its current identity, fighting for survival as eight rebel teams threatened to create a breakaway series and the ruling body threatened to take legal action against them.

Asked how this had all come about, Brawn said: "Perhaps with the economic climate, there was a need to review the initiatives (towards cost cutting), but in a structured way. A balance needed to be kept.

"The reaction needed to be the correct reaction. In our view it didn't need to be as dramatic as occurred - and that's where the differences of opinions have come.

"The reaction that the FIA felt was necessary to protect Formula One. The balance of opinion, between the opinion of the teams and the FIA, has been different and it's been difficult to reconcile those differences.

"Some of the teams don't agree with the FIA in the way that it needs to be developed and we've ended up in a situation where some teams have now entered Formula One under a different set of regulations to those that the other teams wished to race under.

"There's a very difficult situation at the moment and we want to find solutions. But if we can't find solutions then we will have to find another championship to race in."