Ferrari has announced that it will not be entering the 2010 FIA Formula 1 World Championship. This is unquestionably a political manoeuvre to put pressure on the FIA to change its budget cap proposal, but it will create all kind of negative publicity that the sport can do without. The teams, the FIA and the Formula One group should be concentrating on how to avoid a repetition of the Spanish GP where the crowd was down 42% on last year and not fighting over how much and how long the budget cap should be. It is clear that this is not about the money, but rather about the exercise of power. The FIA will see it as an attack on its sovereignty and will no doubt refuse to back down. This means that everyone is betting the farm on winning. This means that the sport – and the fans – will lose out.
What happens next? The FIA can try to go ahead and organise a World Championship without Ferrari. In all probability if Ferrari does not enter, other teams will follow suit. Thus the FIA may have to do something drastic and redesignated the GP2 championship as the World Championship. Will this fill the grandstands? Will that cause the Formula One group to lose money and default on its debts? The alternative is that a compromise will be found and the FIA will agree to lower the budget cap or introduce a “glide path”, with the budget cap coming in more gradually. The third option is that there will be a revolt within the FIA and Max Mosley and his supporters will be ousted.
We have no idea which of these will happen, but we know that the fans are going to be the victims of all this.
I guess if the manufacturers and Red Bull pull out, and the new entries lined up join, they will have to rename the series something like ‘Independent British Racing Car Series – featuring Force India’ (and possibly USF1). Wait, USF1 would have to change their name to ‘USIBRCSFFI’. Not much of a world championship in my eyes.
I’m starting to warm to the idea that a manufacturer/corporation-run series would be a good idea. As much as I don’t want to see a split, it may be the only way forward. A1 morphing into a GPWC wouldn’t be so bad – look at the tracks they have and could have. Would certainly stick two fingers up at Bernie who may not have races in Britain, France, Canada, the USA etc next year
It’s crunch time. Next few weeks are going to be crucial in F1′s survival. Whatever happens, the sport is going to change radically
“…redesignated the GP2 championship as the World Championship”
precisely.
What’s most telling to me is the position taken publicly by Mateschitz. After all,he was recruited by BE into F1, and spent heavily to supplant Stoddart (for the benefit of BE & MM).
As much as i know its highly unlikely to happen, a breakaway series owned by the teams makes a huge deal of sense. f1 is pretty unique with the competitors not having any ownership or control. The NFL, Major league baseball and the premier league all show how sports can benefit enormously in terms of promotion and stability when competitors own at least part of the championship.
A breakaway championship owned by the teams would allow them to race at circuits that would be best for the sport, not for short term money. The greater finance running back to the teams would allow them to have a budget cap closer to what they spend today. Although its always going to be difficult for competitors to legislate and police themselves, other sports have proven it can be done.
Who knows, maybe Bernie could be hired as promoter.
[...] Shit hits fans – Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog "It is clear that this is not about the money, but rather about the exercise of power. The FIA will see it as an attack on its sovereignty and will no doubt refuse to back down. This means that everyone is betting the farm on winning. This means that the sport – and the fans – will lose out." (tags: politics ferrari fia BudgetCap) [...]
Who would have predicted a few years ago that Ferrari would bite the hand that bought them?
I hope this time the teams stick together and drive Max out of office or set up an alternative championship that the FIA has no power over. Unfortunately there will probably be some compromise and we will repeat this farce as we have before.
I find it amazing that the teams all signed up till 2012 and no-one amongst them had the intelligence to put a clause in the contract to guarantee stability of regulations. I guess Ferrari were so busy counting their signing bonus that they didn’t have time to read what they were signing.
It would be nice to think that Max would be driven out of office and not be replaced by another Bernie puppet but I don’t see it happen. It would be interesting to see what would happen if an independent FIA president challenged the commercial rights contract in court.
Wondering aloud, is it F1 that people follow or the teams?
Personally, I am a fan of BrawnGP, but this was because it was the default option after Honda withdrew.
I can not imagine I’m alone in this.
Guys, relax nothing is gonna change !!!
When it comes to high stakes betting the first to fold are those with everything to lose or the least to gain
You lose Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and probably BMW you haven’t got F1 any more and everyone knows it. F1 is what rates in the media. Sports car racing, it doesn’t have the same media attention.
We will get some sort of compromise the FIA (read CVC) can’t afford to lose F1 neither can Ferrari, the others I am not too sure of as they’re too busy trying to make money in a recession.
Sit back and enjoy the poker and stop worrying
As one of the aforementioned ‘fans’ I would like to thank you for your concerns Joe. They are very much appreciated.
Sadly I am under no illusions that anyone in the FIA cares about us.
But, much in the same way as the Monty Python cricketer who kept getting hit “slap bang between the eyes” by the cricket ball…. we are getting used to it now!
It seems to me that this is a high powered game of “chicken”.
The trouble with games of chicken is that if no one flinches there is an almighty head on collision and everyone dies.
I kind of agree with Tony G in that nothing will change and next season we will have the same teams running similar races on the same tracks.
Where I disagree is his link between the FIA and CVC. Right now the dispute is between FOTA and the FIA. If the teams decide to split from the FIA Bernie will follow the teams because that is where the money is. He will drop Max like a hot potato.
I will not be remotely surprised to find out in a few years that Bernie is th prime mover behind this. My guess is that he will do a deal to buy out CVC’s rights for a fraction of what he received for them and transfer them over to a new championship. That way he can take a smaller percentage than CVC did and still be better off.