The F1 teams are reportedly seeking clarification after waking up to the news that Sky Sports will share F1 coverage with the BBC starting in 2012.
On Friday morning it was confirmed that Sky Sports would share coverage of Formula One with the BBC after signing a deal that runs from 2012 to 2018.
The deal will see Sky Sports, a pay-per-view channel, show all races, qualifying and practice sessions live while the BBC, free-to-air TV, will only show half the races and qualifying sessions live.
The announcement has come as a surprise to the Formula One teams especially as F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has spoken in the past about the importance of keeping F1 on free-to-air TV.
"As I understand BBC are covering half the grands prix, and Sky are doing every practice session and everything else. It's interesting," McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh told Autosport.
"I don't think anyone should be immediately reacting to say this is good, bad, or indifferent.
"What we need to understand is whether the large audience we currently enjoy in Formula 1 will be maintained. I think we also need to understand exactly how this is being done."
He also explained that taking F1 off free-to-air TV could be viewed as a breach of the Concorde Agreement.
"We've got a range of safeguards within Concorde, and the right thing to do is to explore how the Formula 1 coverage is going to be dealt with in the future, and take a view from there. I don't know how many homes in the UK have Sky, but it is a pretty high proportion."
Meanwhile, Williams chairman Adam Parr is refusing to comment on the new deal until such a time as he knows all the details.
"In principle I have no issue with optimising the balance between the revenues that we need, and getting a good reach in the audience," he said. "The devil is in the detail.
"I think it is a balance and, without knowing the details, you cannot comment on whether it is good or bad. What I do know is that Bernie is a very passionate believer in getting the broadest audience possible and I think he has almost certainly done this in order to do that."
As for UK fans who don't have Sky, Parr says that while he sympathises, they need to understand how expensive it is to run Formula One.
"I am sympathetic to them. I understand it is difficult - but English Premier League fans have had that for a while haven't they?
"The one thing I would say, which I have said before, I know that whether you are coming to a race or are watching the sport at home and have to do that on pay TV which seems expensive, people have to bear in mind what it costs to put on this show. It is part of the character of F1.
"For us to design and build the two cars that we will have on the grid on Sunday here, without putting an engine in them, without putting a driver in them, without accounting for the 70 staff that we bring to each race - without all of that those cars cost £2 million. You multiply that by all the cars on the grid and that is £24 million minimum of the costs just to make the parts. That is part of the show.
"It is not a bloke or two blokes with a tennis racket and a pair of plimsolls with zero cost. It is a very, very expensive sport. The best thing we can do for fans, whether they want to come to the races or want to watch it on TV, is to reduce the cost of the sport without spoiling the show."
