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Don’t knock Formula One’s new teams, says Todt

Formula One should get behind new teams rather than criticising their lack of pace, International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Jean Todt said on Friday.

Manama: Formula One should get behind new teams rather than criticising their lack of pace, International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Jean Todt said on Friday.
In his first news conference at a Formula One grand prix since replacing Max Mosley at the helm of the sport’s governing body, the former Ferrari boss welcomed new entrants Virgin, Malaysian-owned Lotus and HRT. “You must have respect for a new team who is arriving in this particular economic crisis period and to invest money to be in F1,” said the Frenchman before the Bahrain season-opener. “I don’t think it is a time to criticise but to support and help, and to help them, and it is in the interests of everybody. “Everybody in the business should be supportive of these days. I was impressed today, they did quite well and we must give them a certain time to be ready.” Lotus, a revival of the marque that was once one of Formula One’s great teams, were the fastest of the newcomers in Friday practice but Heikki Kovalainen’s best lap for them was still 5.4 seconds off the pace. HRT, the hard-up Spanish-based team who were running their car without any previous testing, had Brazilian rookie Bruno Senna 11.5 seconds adrift of pacesetter Nico Rosberg in a Mercedes. Virgin had Germany’s Timo Glock in the garage for most of the afternoon after his car had a gearbox problem. Todt added that the FIA supported the eventual reintroduction of the “107 percent rule” which would eliminate any car whose fastest lap in qualifying was outside 107 percent of the pole position time. “We are very in favour of reintroducing the 107 percent limit,” he said. “To change that for 2010 you need to have the unanimous agreement of the teams...I don’t think it will happen so we have to wait until 2011 to introduce it.” Bureau Report