McLaren to Maintain FOTA Presidency in 2011

McLaren Mercedes' team principal Martin Whitmarsh is likely to retain his position as head of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) in 2011, as revealed by British website Autosport. Whitmarsh took presidency of the teams' alliance back in 2009 from Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo, a position which he was supposed to occupy for a 12-month period.

However, according to the aforementioned source, it seems that the signing of a new Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA) in September this year – a plan that will extend towards 2017 and focuses on bringing down expenditures in the sport to the level set in the early 1990s – has made the members of the FOTA reconsider the naming of another president just yet.

Since the new RRA has just been signed, Autosport revealed the FOTA representatives want to see how the new scheme will work. So keeping the same man who supervised the whole agreement in charge for an additional 12 months makes a lot of sense, not to mention that nobody really wanted to succeed Whitmarsh for the FOTA presidency just yet.

Until now, there were three high-ranked members of the paddock linked with Whitmarsh's position within the FOTA, namely Red Bull's Christian Horner, Williams' Adam Parr and Mercedes GP's Ross Brawn, who is currently the head of the technical group within the organization.

Of course, the new decision – to keep Whitmarsh in the same position – was not confirmed by any of the FOTA members, but an official announcement is expected to be made somewhere around the New Year. At the same time, the FOTA is expected to name its new structure for the sporting, commercial and technical working groups, those positions being also available for a 12-month period.