Lola F1 decision Tuesday
The British racing car company lodged an application and due diligence was carried out by the FIA, but Lola was ultimately overlooked on the initial entry list by F1's governing body.
Several of the unsuccessful applicants, however, were put on a reserve list in light of the provisional status of the rebel FOTA teams.
Lola on Wednesday confirmed that the FIA requested it remain "in a state of readiness", but said it decided to "withdraw its application" nonetheless.
It is believed the outfit is particularly disappointed at missing out, noting in its press statement that "significant financial investment" was spent on its 2010 car.
"No further comment will be made," said Lola.
06/14/09 Lola owner Martin Birrane says his company will decide on Tuesday whether to stay in the running for an F1 entry or give up the ship after not being named Friday by the FIA on the official F1 team list for 2010.
A chance still exists that Lola will be added if Max Mosley and the FIA do not relent on the FOTA demands. Should that happen the FOTA teams could try to form their own series, but in all likelihood they will head to a beach with a mallet to pound sand for 2010 and beyond.
“We will know more on Tuesday, we have to sit down and talk about it," he told AUTOSPORT. “We found out on Friday and haven’t had time really to sit and ponder about it since. We’re reviewing the situation."
“We’ve had our F1 car model in the tunnel for the last week, and we have a proper car now," said Birrane. “We’ve had a lot of people working on it for seven weeks, with a lot of input from people with current experience in Formula 1.
“The button is pressed, it’s just a case of do we turn it off. We’ve made no decisions yet."