FOTA suspends Williams F1

The news that Williams F1 has been suspended from membership of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) is unfortunate and it would probably have been wiser for the other members of the organisation to try to understand the position in which Williams found itself and give the team as much support as possible.

“FOTA’s decision, although regrettable, is understandable,” says Sir Frank Williams. “However, as a racing team and a company whose only business is Formula 1, with obligations to our partners and our employees, submitting our entry to next year’s Championship was unquestionable. In addition, we are legally obliged under our contract with FOM and the FIA to participate in the World Championship until the end of 2012.”

As indeed are the other teams – should they choose to focus on that piece of information.

The question that was asked when Williams announced its plan to enter the championship was whether or not FOTA would crumble, as did the GPWC and the GPMA, two previous organisations that featured the same basic membership. On this occasion, however, I am not so sure that is going to happen. Some teams will not have been happy with the decision made by Williams but the team nonetheless signed the letter to FIA President Max Mosley requesting that next year’s regulations are scrapped if they are to commit their future to the sport. The letter said that the teams would commit to the sport until 2012 if this was agreed. Given that they are already committed to the sport as a result of a commercial agreement with Formula One Management, this is no great concession. FOTA has several goals and while some teams want to make things happen quickly, others are wise enough to understand that change in F1 is probably best achieved with gentle progress. Staying out of the championship in 2010 might force the issue and – in theory – might lead to Max Mosley being ousted from the FIA, but the real thrust of FOTA should be to establishing the right structure from 2012 when the current financial agreements come to an end. It is clear that teams do not wish to be bullied into accepting a smaller share of the revenues than they want. In order to achieve that they need unity. Suspending Williams is a rather ham-fisted way of achieving that and it gives off all the wrong signals.

Given that no-one believes that a rival championship is a good idea, and that half the teams have to worry about money and legal action from Bernie Ecclestone, and that teams become very quickly worthless if they do not have F1 entries, it is hard to imagine that others are not tempted to sign up as Williams has done. It would be wise for FOTA to let teams do as they please. Entering the championship does not mean that a team accepts the way the sport is governed in the longer term; nor does it mean that a team is happy with the revenue split, but it does guarantee their survival – and that has to be the first priority. The manufacturers can walk off if they wish and not care a jot about F1 and that is their weakness as much as their strength. If they were more committed perhaps Mosley and Ecclestone would fear them more. Ferrari is the key to this dispute and the Italians know that. In 2005 they did a deal that suited them very nicely; this time around they do not want the same deal because they do not think that the terms agreed back then have been honoured. Thus they are allied with the other teams.

In the end, however, Ferrari will do what is best for Ferrari, rather than what is best for the sport. Just as Williams has done. The real skill is to find a situation in which everyone is doing what is best for them and the sport is moving forward without all the grief and dirty washing that it drags around with it at the moment.

There are some who feel that this will not change as long as the same people are involved – and there may be an element of truth in that.

But no-one lives forever.

F1 went through all of this way back in 1980-1982. Only a few of those involved remember that far back: Mosley, Ecclestone and Williams were on the same side in those days. Ferrari and Renault were allied with the FIA, represented at the time by the semi-autonomous FISA. The FISA-FOCA War, as it was known, was a fight to control the commercial rights of F1. The battles resulted in the Concorde Agreement in which FOCA won to right negotiate television deals for Formula 1 races. It did so on behalf of the FISA and the governing body was recompensed with considerable sums of money. After the FISA-FOCA war the political lanscape of F1 changed. The leaders of FOCA became the establishment. max Mosley worked his way up the ladder to become president of the FISA. He then oversaw the dismantling of the FISA and became president of the FIA. Bernie Ecclestone changed his role from that of team owner to concentrate more on making money for the teams. Along the way, he decided that he could do it all himself and eventually took personal control of the rights. It was never intended that way and it caused friction.

The way to stop that friction is to go back to the balance that was struck in the original Concorde Agreement, with all of its checks and balances. There would need to be some small changes to make agreements easier but there was not much wrong with that deal, which kept the sport relatively healthy until the end of 2007.

The sport could benefit from some more longterm thinking.

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