Todt: Teams are allowed to miss three races

FIA president Jean Todt has said that any new team that fails to make the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix will in fact be allowed to miss the first three races of 2010 without fear of punishment.

There have been persistent doubts that two of the four new teams scheduled to join the Formula One grid this season, Campos Meta and USF1, will not be ready in time for the first race on March 14.

Both outfits have so far announced only one of their two drivers for 2010, with Bruno Senna lined up for the Spanish Campos team and Jose Maria Lopez confirmed by USF1.

However, both have yet to unveil their cars and as a consequence are missing out on vital pre-season testing which started last week in Valencia and continues on Wednesday at Jerez.

Speaking at a media briefing in Paris on Tuesday, Todt confirmed: "In the last draft of the Concorde Agreement it's written that a team can skip three races."

Another new outfit, Serbia's Stefan GP, have stolen a march by acquiring the 2010 cars and technical support from Toyota, which announced in November that it was pulling out of F1.

Despite Stefan GP having yet to secure an official entry, they have announced a test later this month and are even shipping equipment to Bahrain.

However, Todt remains cautious that they will be allowed to race.

"If one of them doesn't make it, it doesn't mean another team comes in. It's up to the FIA to decide if they have the credentials," the former Ferrari team principal said.

Todt, who replaced Max Mosley as FIA president last year, also said that he was against the latter's budget cap proposal which almost brought about a breakaway series last year.

The Frenchman did state that he wanted to continue to reduce costs, although he supported the expensive KERS energy recovery system which has been dropped this year.

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