Launching FIA Sport Conference 2014, FIA President Jean Todt yesterday told delegates that motor sport “can no longer exist in a vacuum and content ourselves with playing our historic role as the regulator of motor sport” and that it must adapt “to a new reality, which is sporting, economic and social in nature”.

Welcoming representatives from 109 ASNs to the headquarters of ADAC in Munich, the President said motor sport faces increased competition from rival championships, a new challenge in the shape of rapidly growing social media, continuing economic difficulties and the need for motor sport to embrace a new era of social responsibility as demands for safety and environmental awareness grow.

He said that this is being done systematically in the FIA’s championships but added that more work needs to
be done to “make motor sport simpler and safer” and to “integrate technical progress” into the federation’s sporting activities.

“It is upon these three bases that we will be able to construct an ambitious development policy for ASNs, similar to what is being done by other international sporting federations,” he said.

He concluded by saying the key to this development would be the careful allocation of the funding made available by the F1 Concorde Agreement and funds from the 100-year rights issue of F1 that are now available.

Expanding on the same theme, FIA Deputy President for Sport Graham Stoker added that a new grant aid programme will be rolled out in the coming days and that delegates would be tasked, in a series of workshops, with defining new proposals for motor sport development that he hopes to present to the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday.