Well, it seems that whatever happened in the FIA World Council meeting, we have a peace deal. No doubt in time the whole story will emerge but what we know is that Max Mosley went into the meeting saying he was going to stand fir re-election and came out saying he was not.
From what we hear the deal was hammered out in Paris between Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone and FOTA president Luca di Montezomolo after the world council told them to sort out the problem.
When all is said and done, however, the news is positive. The sport can get on with dealing with the recession and the problems of funding. There may be political peace for a period but no doubt discussions will soon begin on the financial structures that will take the sport on after 2012.
Great news. I opened up Autosport.com and saw this grinning photo of Max. I feared for the worst.
I think (hope) FOTA will buy the F1 rights from CVC and Bernie come 2012 (maybe equal shares for each team). This whole mess shows he’s no longer capable of running the whole show on his own nor should he.
Thank goodness! Although I would have loved to have seen Bernie and Max struck by their own hubris. One question, all of the talk regarding the budget and spending limits, What does that money include. Is it just the money spent on the car, production of the car, does it include the salaries of the drivers, team personnel, travel, fuel, the hospitality areas, the caravan, or what? How does that compare to other european sports such as premier league football, or even NASCAR, or US sports franchises.
Just wondering about that, and not sure where to find clarification or cost comparison.
I think we should wait until we see an open casket with a golden spike applied, but that is all very nice.
One does have to wonder whether Bernie and Luca possess “new information”, or if they merely promised to erect a fifty-foot bronze statue of a laureled Mosley in the Place de la Concorde.
Peace in our time? Maybe, but I’d wait until FOTA respond. Max is as slippery as they get – he’d have left the FIA long ago if he wasn’t.
I’m glad that the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched on again – I was looking forwards to racing in a top-end open-wheeled racecar series in 2010. We might now have that to look forwards to.
On a related note, what Formula One has to do at it’s earliest opportunity is to create a succession plan for the Bernie Show. The last couple of weeks has shown that without future plans, anything can happen and this is half the problem that F1 faces. Let Bernie start to nominate / delegate his activities to people who become visible to all of us, so in the time honoured way there will be someone to take over when the proverbial bus runs him over.
If I were FOTA, I would not stop any planning on the breakaway series. To put it lightly, Mosley has said at least twice previously that he will be standing down – only to then stand again. I can imagine he will find some reason or justification to re-nominate for the presidency come October.
If FOTA give away the breakaway series, they lose all leverage in negotiations over the coming months.
I can imagine that the Max/Bernie tactic from here will be to stall for 3-4 months, then come October not change a lot – knowing it will be too late for FOTA. There is still a massive issue remaining of revenue sharing between FOM and the teams.
Good. Now Max can go away and we can think of him as the guy who did great work to improve road safety and safety in motorsport and, if we feel magnanimous, forget about the other stuff.
Yipee!! Now hopefully they can also get on with a few things that will make the sport more interesting.
1. Go back to the old qualifying format where you had an hour to do whatever you wanted to the car and run to your hearts content and whomever was fastest got pole. Sorry but although now is better than that one shot rubbish from a few years ago quali is still boring until the last 3 minutes of Q3 these days and that fuel thing is complicated.
2. Allow teams to run backup drivers on Friday if they choose to.
3. Award a championship point again for pole after qualifying.
4. Award points to everyone all the way down the order so we really know who is the best of the worst and the actual worst instead of a bunch of teams that finish the season with a handful (or none) of constructor and drivers points.
5. Bring back two way telemetry! Whoops I had better stop there as that will cost money.
I do believe though that now is the time to look at the other popular motorsports and how they make it interesting and bring back some of the parts of F1 that I (we hopefully) used to love. Hopefully there are others that agree with me.
Anyway great news and let’s get on with some racing!
This is great news. Fota + new teams is excellent. Max didn’t get his way and he’s not running for re-election…nobody is pulling out and the USF1 team will be running with the likes of Ferrari! I just hope they can be competetive, but I do worry about those cosworth engines. I cannot wait to hear the details of that meeting.
So pleased that peace has been found; one question for me though is what is going to happen with the regs for next year? I hear they will be very similar to 2009, but what about refuelling & KERS?
The time zones are killing us in California, where it’s 9am Wednesday… We need some gossip, and we need it NOW!
1. How is it that Boeri, a name new to me until just yesterday (and then presented as senior and unchallenging) could have such a central role?
2. Will we ever know in detail what happened in this meeting? I’ve been *amazed* at the gentle rhetoric from team principles over Silverstone weekend, as each of them took great pains to say this wasn’t just about Mosley; I was almost convinced! But seventy-two hours later, it looks like he was scalped.
3. What does this mean to Bernie? Specifically, what does it mean to FRANK WILLIAMS and Bernie? Are we any closer to having customer teams than we were before this crisis?
4. (The really gossipy part) – Did Bernie hang Max out to dry?
When I think of all horrible things that Max has said about people like John Howett in recent months, it seems likely that he’ll be remembered as a troubled soul with an inordinate fascination for what it means to say harsh things to others. The sport and the series will do well being rid of him.
I think this makes it pretty clear that Max’s departure is what this has all been about since the beginning. Any talk of the financial settlements has been mere smoke-screen… otherwise I’m sure Bernie would have weighed in in public much more vigorously.
Max said last year that he wouldn’t stand again this autumn, and perhaps if he’d stuck to that promise earlier, this debacle could have been diverted much sooner. As it is, we’re left with relief that it’s done (until October at least, when we see if Max is as good as his word this time), and a feeling of ‘WTF!’ that it all dragged on this long in the first place.
I can’t believe the teams have caved. No doubt we can re-live this whole farce in 2012.
I wonder what odds I would get on so many people asking Max to stand that he has no option to seek re-election or that some major real or imagined crisis can be created that only he can deal with.
I guess he has until October t re-negotiate the commercial rights deal as promised at the time of his vote of confidence.
[...] A deal is done – Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog "From what we hear the deal was hammered out last night in Paris between Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone and FOTA president Luca di Montezomolo. He must have heard things that made him happy to agree without needing to consult his troops. That in itself js an interesting reflection on what occurred. [...]
I am not sure that the teams did much caving in. They achieved most of what they wanted to achieve.
The Boeri story was not correct when I was able to double check. He is nonetheless an important man in the FIA. He has been head of the Automobile Club de Monaco since the early 1970s and is a member of the FIA Senate. Did Bernie Ecclestone hang Max out to dry? Well, look at this way. Three guys went into a room and two came out with jobs.
I have to disagree with you Joe. The teams have promises but absolutely nothing concrete that I can see. There is no new commercial deal. There is no signed Concorde Agreement. There have been no limits placed on Bernie’s ability to manipulate the calendar to benefit CVC while penalising teams, sponsors and fans by cancelling traditional races and racing in front of empty grandstands in countries with no interest in the sport and no market for sponsors.
They have a promise from Max that he will stand down but he already made that same promise at the tim of the vote of confidence and reneged on that.
I have not caught up on all the news yet so there may be something I haven’t seen but as far as I can see the teams have gained nothing tangible.
Mr. Saward
I am pleased that Max is out……but I was hoping that
Bernie/CVC was out as well or at least that in this agreement it was revealed that CVC was only given 10-20% of the income instead of 50%……. plus I was looking forward to seeing Montreal, Indy, A1-ring, Imola, and Adelaide back on the schedule but I get to look “forward” to South Korea, India, Abu Dahbi, China, and Turkey in the
future……… Oh well, I guess one can’t have everything…………… ’sigh.
Horrible news. FOTA deserves to live under the evil of Stalin/Mao/Hitler/Bush. The teams just folded a royal flush to a busted straight. Unless Bernie agreed to a 85/15 split, immediate payment of all outstanding sums (tens of millions) due under the MOU, and a 50% reduction in the cost to track promoters and halving ticket prices, reinstating some of the old venues, giving the teams 100% control over the regs, and a total dismantling of the WMSC and all the political apparatchiks at the FIA immediately replacing Mosley with Ron Dennis or Stoddart, I can’t see a bit of good coming out of this. We are now stuck with the organization that gave us the Spa decision, TMDs being movable aero devices and stewards who don’t look at the video before issuing a ruling. This is just another travesty in a long line of self-afflicted abuses. The teams will certainly regret it. The fans will certainly get an inferior show and the regs will still suck.
The one thing most people agree about Max is that he’s a very clever man (often too clever for his own good perhaps!)
I think he has always intended to step down in October…last weeks about turn was just a negotiating ploy of his. It appeared a big concession he could give to the teams, while avoiding having to compromise as much in other areas.
Just look at his history over the years in negotiations over changes to F1…he always asks (or demands) far more than happens…but he usually achieves exactly what he set out to.
Given some time, I think we’ll look back on these last few weeks and realise Max has once again got pretty much what he wanted all along.
Also, I feel cheated. FOTA pointed to the support of fans in their argument, yet with this settlement the fans aren’t getting what they want, ie.
- more money distributed into the sport so that we don’t have to be robbed blind with ticket and other costs
- better revenue split so that $15M from Silverstone is acceptable rather than sucking 3x more than that out of Istanbul (thus compromising the racing)
- in turn, track selection based on racing rather than economic reasons
FIA wins, FOTA wins, fans lose.
Joe, do you notice that both you and James are being spammed? Check out the posting by the username “links for . . . ”
You guys might want to do something about that. . . .
Thanks for the great blog! Sorry to hear about Boeri.
Bernie must also go – he is the enemy of the fans.
Can’t help but wonder – what did FOTA have to give up in order to seal the deal?
Specifically, what was offered to Luca DM behind closed doors? More concessions to Ferrari? A better financial deal for Ferrari over the other teams? A guarantee that Jean Todt will be the next FIA President?
Overall, this makes a lot of sense and I am glad everybody pulled back from the abyss before they plunged over. However, some things still stick in my mind – mainly the worthy teams which appear to have been denied an entry. What now for Prodrive and Epsilon – and perhaps Lola for that matter? Wait and see if somebody else bails out?
The other major question for me is circuits. The supposed wish list that was going around looked good but will we really be back to the USA, Magny Cours, Silverstone, Montreal? I hope so and we don’t put up with more of the snooze fests in high-paying countries.
“Three guys went into a room and two came out with jobs.” That’s an interesting and amusing way of looking at the meeting, Joe. I would have paid good money to be a fly on the wall.
Happy we will have racing next year but it’s a shame that Lola and Prodrive will not be on the grid. Was kind of getting jazzed about some of the circuits being mentioned in the possible.FOTA schedy list.
Joe, IS it possible Max is just transferring F1 to the senate, which he will then reform so he is in a position of power so he can carry on where he left off in a few months time. He seems to be pretty happy, and he is a brilliant politician, could he be playing the long game?
I think all 3 parties involved did the right thing. Maybe they could also think of more affordable ticket prices for the future? And a race in North America + Danica @ USF1.
Even without a job Max will be fine, he doesn’t need one, all he has to do is write a book like Bernard did or at least I heard so.
> I can’t believe the teams have caved. No
> doubt we can re-live this whole farce in 2012.
Maybe we don’t have to… That’s why I was asking about Bernie and Frank Williams. Three more teams is a lot, especially if they all deliver two cars. Maybe the need for customer cars has been averted, and no one will have to fear Frank Willams’ veto anymore.
> hammered out last night in Paris between Mosley,
> Bernie Ecclestone and FOTA president Luca di
> Montezomolo. He must have heard things that
> made him happy to agree without needing to
> consult his troops.
This is a matter of continuing fascination for me. The other teams trust Ferrari… Even when it turns out the Italians have struck a private deal. Teams want to race against and defeat Ferrari no matter how great the odds…. That’s the point. This is, to me, the greatest imaginable testament to the integrity of the sport (well, that and Brawn’s trouncing of Maranello with a panic-matched chassis and engine). Mr. Toyota and Mr. Renault (whatever the executive’s names) aren’t the kind of guys who are horsing around.
(So to speak.)
Told you it would sort itself out. Now all we need to address is the prohibitive cost of attending a GP. That has nothing to do with the teams and everything to do with Ecclestone and CVC who are the real culprits along with Mosley who sold an asset worth billions for a nickel.