The information was disclosed by team founder Peter Sauber, in an interview with Switzerland's 20min.ch. Although it was quite logical to begin with – after all, who would buy an F1 team without the prospect of actually racing in the series – the terms of the deal state that BMW are still very much owners of the team until the FIA makes its decision.
“The (takeover) contract between BMW and Qadbak is only in force if the FIA officially confirms the entry for 2010. BMW is still the owner and is therefore responsible for the communication. Personally I'm in the passenger seat at the moment,” said Sauber for the aforementioned source.
The international federation is still deliberating on the situation, as it first needs to make sure that Toyota's exit from the series is compliant with the F1 rules. All of the teams (including the Japanese car maker) signed the new Concorde Agreement earlier this year, by which they guarantee their presence in the sport at least until 2012.
Now that Toyota have broken that deal, the FIA will investigate into the legal aspects of the decision and only after that focus on granting a potential 13th entry for a new team.
The situation is somehow identical to the one that happened in the MotoGP prior to the 2009 season, when Kawasaki announced their immediate quit from the premier motorcycle competition. They had already signed a deal with MotoGP's promoter Dorna for a number of years and were obliged by contract to maintain at least one bike in the series (otherwise they would have looked at legal actions from Dorna).
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