Shell
McLaren boss Ron Dennis confirmed their (McLaren and Ferrari) growing off-track ties and said the result has proved “profound”.
Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni also spent the day at McLaren’s Woking factory meeting Dennis and other staff.
“If you had told me a year ago that I would be doing this I would not have believed you,” he said.
Reigning constructors champions Ferrari and McLaren have a chequered recent history.
The English team was fined a record $100m (£70m) in 2007 and stripped of all their constructors’ points for their involvement in a spying controversy over leaked Ferrari technical data in their possession.
Ferrari also started legal action against their rivals, with Dennis and other executives questioned by Italian police, though the action was later dropped after a McLaren apology.
Since then, the climate has changed with Jean Todt handing over as Ferrari boss to Stefano Domenicali while Dennis is due to step down as McLaren principal on March 1 to make way for Martin Whitmarsh.
While FOTA have agreed significant savings with the FIA for this season and beyond, they want Ecclestone to hand over far more of the sport’s revenues to them than the 50 per cent they currently receive.
Dennis said that McLaren and Ferrari were “working extremely closely together” and he would devote more of his time to FOTA activities.
“The result of our cooperation, supported by all the other teams, has already been profound,” he said.
“The cost-cutting measures that FOTA put forward were agreed by (FIA president) Max Mosley, when we met him in Monte Carlo on December 10, and were taken further when FOTA met again, this time without Max, in London on January 8.”
“We’re not complacent; we’re not reluctant to embrace radical change; we’re not hidebound by on-track rivalries,” added Dennis.
