LONDON (Sky Sports ) - A plan to double the number of Formula 1 ‘sprint’ events next season is being held up by governing body the FIA.
The teams unanimously backed a proposal from commercial rights holder F1 to hold six sprint events next year at Tuesday’s meeting of the F1 Commission.
But the FIA said in a statement that it was “evaluating the impact of the proposal on its trackside operations and personnel”.
Several sources say the FIA asked for more money in return for its support.
Senior sources have told BBC Sport they were surprised by FIA president Mohammed ben Sulayem’s stance, which has annoyed F1 and a number of the teams.
The FIA already receives about $40mn ($30.7mn) a year from F1, as well as an extra $1mn for every race held above 20, in addition to income from promoters.
An FIA spokesman said the request was “not entirely money-related” but was “for a genuine operational purpose” to do with “ensuring we have the resource to adequately do our job”.
“We’re not a profit-creating organization,” he said, “but we do need to be properly resourced.”
He said sprint events had “a significant impact on the workload of staff”, adding that “we would probably need to increase the number of operational staff in areas such as scrutinizing, parc ferme and tyre return.”