Bernie Ecclestone recently revealed that the new Concorde Agreement had provisions that allowed all teams on the grid to miss up to three races in the world championship without penalty, paving the way in case USF1 and Campos Meta failed to show in Bahrain next month.

Jean Todt, President of the FIA, also confirmed this in a recent interview with the Gazzetta Dello Sport....

"At the last session of the World Council the possibility of a team not participating in three races was endorsed, even if they were not consecutive races,” he was quoted as saying.

However, following these reports the FIA has now made the following clarification...

“From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each Team that has registered for the Championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season. Any failure to take part, even for just one Championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA Regulations.”