The decisions of the FIA World Motor Sport Council include one specific item which is going to be deeply unpopular with the F1 teams. The decisions included “the new tender procedure for appointing single suppliers in the tyre and fuel categories, for the FIA F1 World Championship”.
If one looks down the grid at fuel/oil sponsors one sees Ferrari with Shell, Red Bull with Total, Mercedes with Petronas, McLaren with Mobil, Lotus with Total, Williams with PDVSA and Scuderia Toro Rosso with Cepsa. Not all of these teams use the products of their sponsors but most of them do and to lose the link with an individual oil sponsor is a serious hit for any of the teams, as oil companies pay a lot to be in F1. In addition to that some of the engine companies prefer to work with a single oil supplier and will not let teams use other fuels.
This is likely to cause some grief…
joeblogsf1 
As the contracts will all be huge perhaps the FIA could be persuaded via some incentive (An Unseen Bung) to perhaps delay implementing this rule.
“This is likely to cause some grief…” – or negotiation space?
Wow Joe, you are a busy boy today, your keyboard must be smoking!
Thanks as always for the insights.
Presumably this particular post is foreseeing a shift of significant amounts of money being diverted from the teams to the FIA?
Does the FIA make their decisions in an isolated room without any apparent input from those that may be affected? Looks like it.
Divide and conquer.
Bernie has this down to a fine art. Could be the world of F1 is heading for it’s biggest shake-up for a long time.
Please, please don’t tell me Todt wants to force in elf….
Ugh, series-mandated sole-suppliers are the early signs of death for any series.
It’ll start with tires, pervade into the realm of electronics, then fuel and oil, then onto gearboxes, dampers, wheels, brakes, turbos and then before you know it everyone’s running a Dallara-Honda. Oh wait.
Why am I getting the very distinct feeling the more details revealed the less this is beginning to look like much of an ‘ agreement ‘ at all ? IMO its looking a whole lot more like the battle lines are being drawn … just my opinion mind you … but ….
You are not wrong.
We need to remember that it’s the height of election season at the FIA. Much, if not most of this is political.
As Joe has often said, the rank and file of the FIA are not best pleased with the status quo regarding F1. They feel ill done by and grossly underpaid.
It’s not that the FIA members are wrong, it’s that the FIA seems to have chosen the wrong party to blame. The FIA seems to be setting up battle lines against the teams, not the commercial rights holder.
On paper, the FIA would seem to be far more aligned with the interests of the teams. The commercial rights holder should be both the team’s and FIA’s natural opposition. Historically, things have not worked out that way. The FIA’s typical mode of operation is to team up with the commercial rights holder, against the teams. One supposes most of this is down to the canny moves of one Bernard Ecclestone.
There were just too many blatantly offensive decisions made today for the reasons to be anything but political.
Ferrari with Total oils…. what you Joe think? sound like cheap for me.
Is a new tender procedure for appointing single supplier in the driver category for the FIA F1 World Championship next?
What is the motivation for this? How does it benefit the FIA, F1 or the team’s to have a single supplier of fuel?
In other squiffy news for Mercedes, bye bye Blackberry!
One more Arab spring and they’ll be down to AMG and MIG…
please don’t use the term “Arab spring” in that pejorative kind of way. I’m sure it’s not only people from that part of the world who find this offensive.
This discussion ends here.
Could it be that the turbo era will mean special fuel additives will aid those teams with the best suppliers. Or am I being Nieve.
Joe,
Is there really an intention to move to a single fuel supplier or is this policy just in place if that became an option for the future?
Just wondering who has shares / owns which oil company?
Or more likely as mentioned above, battlelines are being drawn…
Ho hum.
Well that’s odd – what have the fuel suppliers done to deserve that? All they have done is be major supporters of Formula One throughout a significant part of the history of the sport! What have they done wrong?!
I wouldn’t want to be a single fuel supplier, given the unwarranted kicking that Pirelli have had this year for their tyres. Fuel economy is going to be so significant that as soon as you have races where everyone is cruising around because they need to save fuel, it’ll be the fuel supplier that gets an equivalent kicking to Pirelli.
My view is that having better fuel economy is going to be a real performance differentiator in the new F1 and so there should be real competition between companies to make more efficient fuels, and that’s an area of research that would have a real benefit to the World (within reason, I know that crazy exotic fuels are already banned in F1).
It’s a shame if that area of competition gets lost because F1 then remains fundamentally an aerodynamics/Adrian Newey contest again.
I would be amazed if this actually made it through to the implementation stage. The amount of money a company like Shell have invested in F1 and related marketing, for example, is massive, and no doubt their rival oil companies are the same. F1 as a whole would literally be much poorer if this happened.
Thank you for a great bunch of posts today and over the past week, some fantastic insight. Keep up the good work it’s very much appreciated.
Joe, you are infinitely better at understanding the Machiavellian world of F1 than am I. No surprise to me that I am stumped by this. Will you please talk down to me and help me see who might be up to what?
LOL.
As I see it, BE was in negotiations with the FIA over cash. He did not want to make any concessions but by agreeing to allow the FIA to make such decisions I guess he opened the way for the Feds to get a revenue stream which he did not care about and which will cause the FIA grief with the teams. Thus he solves a problem, loses nothing and weakens his competition. Machiavelli would give him an A+.
Thanks for that.
When you put it that way, it seems (dare I say it?) almost sensible (in a Bernie kind of way). Are the FIA people disinclined to think they’re getting hornswaggled?
Since this is a bit of a bombshell , that didn’t take long to be noticed , even though it was “Hidden in the detail” , it all makes me wonder if there’s something even more sinister lurking in the finer print .
What’s the chance , Joe , that this is just slight of hand ?
It seems that this should be easily seen as a very sticky point for the teams by anybody involved , and thus , how could the FIA have been convinced this would fly ?
Like you say , it’s likely to cause some grief , but I wonder if that’s understated a wee bit , and if it’s all just meant to be contentious , so we’ll pay no attention to the man behind the curtain .
And THIS is why it’s so wonderful to leave the comment section open! Thanks, Joe.
All this means is that all the race cars will use the same fuel decided by the FIA. It will not change sponsorship of the teams one bit. The teams can still use and promote all the other fluids and oils used in the cars from their sponsors.
Think about it.
Think of it a slightly different way. If Honda were contracted to supply all the engines on the grid, would Ferrari take part?
another move to becoming a ‘full spec’ series.
So they want to effectively stop a source of income to the teams – some of which are in serious financial trouble already – and introduce something which will make no difference to the ‘show’ what so ever. Maybe they want the teams to be more dependant on Bernie’s hand outs!
I am sure Bernie gave up on the fight because it saved him money and in the hope that the teams would be unhappy with the Feds…
How about spec fuel and oil, made by the different oil companies?
In the mid 1950s, the FIA declared that fuel for championship cars should be ‘pump fuel’ instead of alcohol mix (ie 10% petrol). Manufacturers told FIA that pump petrol varied considerably between countries holding F1/GP races — petrol varying between WWII ‘pool gas’ and something about four star in terms of octane rating. Surprisingly, manufacturers did not explain how they managed to support purchasers of road sports cars with high compression ratio engines.
Consequently, the FIA adopted the only standard ‘pump fuel’ available: Avgas (aviation petroleum). Sadly, your 1950s road going Austin or Aston Martin will not run well on 1956 Avgas; it is too rich and the lead will clog the valves. But it was perfect for a race tuned engine of the time.
Eventually, racing rules changed to adopt four star pump fuel as the standard. Notably at the 1976 Monza F1 GP, questions were asked about the composition of four star petrol in racing cars.
You could argue that the 1970s were a period when spec fuels were used. But you would be kidding yourself. The Texaco petrol in a McLaren M23 could not be bought at your local filling station.
If there is a narrow spec rule for F1 petrol, oil companies will work within the spec to varying degrees of success. And the FIA would look stupid all over again.
A strange calendar and now this? Hmmmm. Got to be a starting point for some negotiations in the coming weeks/months. Or is little Napoleon showing his true colours?
Baffling. I don’t see how this is in anyone’s interest. I can imagine a situation in which an oil company will stump up a sum of money to be the named supplier to F1, and that this money will possibly be split between the FIA and the teams, for carrying the branding on their cars. But the sums involved almost certainly will not cover the huge sums paid by the likes of Shell, Total, Mobil, Petronas and PDVSA to individual teams. I also cannot imagine that money being proportional to the amount that the individual teams received from their deals beforehand.
Also, the idea of other oil companies supplying other fluids just isn’t going to happen. No oil company will want to pay to put their logo alongside that of one of their rivals, and the proposal may have some form of exclusivity clause in any case. This would effectively exclude all other oil companies but the franchise holder from F1.
Having just about recovered from the shedding of a considerable – but politically unsustainable – income stream from cigarette companies, the FIA is now proposing that they remove one of motor sport’s most obvious and natural sources of sponsorship as well? What next? A single clothing supplier? I can only imagine the fury this will cause down the pitlane.
The word ‘Agreement’ suggests that all parties are happy with the outcome. I hardly think the teams will be happy. First, drivers have to pay extra for a Superlicence, Teams have to pay more to enter the championship and now they will lose the valuable sponsorship from oil companies. Are the FIA trying to ruin the series or just try to ensure teams that have a billionaire backer can survive? I sincerely hope Todt gets booted out in the election, although that probably wont change anything in this agreement as it will already be binding.
Thanks for everything Jean! (sic).
The FIA has worked hard to make this the world’s most costly spec series and they continue on that path.
Soon driver size will be mandated.
The sport has lost me…. no longer care. I’ll watch one more year in the hopes there are a significant number of engine failures and interesting races, but that’s it.
FIA has ruined it all for me and this is another indicator.
Fia screwed themselvses. Or, Mosley screwed them. All the money Bernie and CVC are making could be had by the federation if they didnt give the tv rights away.
I do agree on the sport being a bit boring lately. With every single loophole in the regulations being closed it’s all about bending small pieces of carbon the right way. Seems like a lot of the interesting tech stuff is gone. Oh and the tyres are ridiculous.
So much about F1 being ‘Formula 1’. There’s barely any choice of engines, common gearboxes, common tyres (of which no one knows how they work, because) virtually no testing, push-to-pass, etc.
Oh yeah: everyone develops their own plastic tub for ridiculous and unnecessary amounts of money for unnoticable difference in looks and vaguely comprehensible one in performance (even the engineers and designers can’t tell what they could do to get better, because – once again – no testing).
Get common fuel and motor oil and adjust the engine to it so it won’t blow up, get a common tyre that barely works and adjust the whole car (chassis, suspension, dampers, etc. etc.) to it – i.e. the weakest link of it all – so the car won’t skid out of the track in the first corner.
Didn’t we have this conversation before?
If I remember correctly from a previous turbo F1 era: ‘turbo F1 petrol’ weighed about 12lb a gallon compared to water at 10lb a gallon which compares to road petrol at about 8lb a gallon. That extra weight was due to the lead-type additives that cooled/controlled the combustion even though the petrol adhered to the required octane rating. Back in those days the driver turned a knob on the dash for ‘qualifying boost’ – remember the black smoke from the exhaust (unburnt fuel keeping the engine within temp limits whilst on max power) which helped indicate who was attempting to qualify?
So, it will be interesting to see if we have any similar visual spectacle in 2014 in quali, even if controlled by software or by a race engineer in the pits.
And developing the point Joe raises, since I’m sure many oil/petrol companies must have already invested significantly in closely developing their ‘associated’ turbo engines for the new series, we’ll hear a lot more about this!
If I understand this correctly, the FIA, want or are thinking of a single fuel supplier to F1, like the tyres.
OK, that is fine, for whoever wins the contract to supply the fuel. If as suggested above the cars run around in a slow fashion to save fuel, then that company will get a real kicking, like the tyre company has got. It actually could hit sales at the local pump level. It would be a brave company to pay and take on that role.
The sponsorship that a team gets comes in two forms. One is Cash, which comes in handy. The other form of sponsorship is technical support partner, and here the oil majors, as listed above, want to test their oil, which is different to petrol in the car. These are high performance engines, which require a special type of engine oil. The F1 cars also have a lot of hydraulics, which run different parts of the car, and there again is a special type of fluid used in the hydraulics, which both of these oil / fluids have a direct correlation to the road car – abate a high performance one to start with.
So would they drop or give up there sponsorship in F1, no, not really, as the real money is the oil in the engine and the fluid in the hydraulics, which more and more new cars are using. Plus they produce lubricants, but not so sure where these might fit into a modern F1 car.
These oil major’s, use F1 as a test bed on their new products and also as an marketing outlet, and a way to expand their Brand in certain countries that F1 goes to, which there aren’t that strong in.
Will it make a real difference? I am not so sure, given that it is only the fuel in the car, and not all the other bits. Plus Bernie wants new engine manufactures to enter into F1, and these engine people do like to work very closely with the major oil companies, on one to one bases.
I am sure Joe knows the make up the deals these teams have, and if part of the package is technical support – test bed related, plus a cash element.
As an added comment to the above, one should look closely, at least in the UK market place. The price we pay at the pump is amongst the highest in Europe, and that is made up the duty & tax that the government slap on fuel in the UK.
Currently .72 pence in the pound £ is paid out to the government which leaves .28 pence in the pound between the oil company, the distribution network and the retailer.
So very heavily taxed, and the oil majors make around 2 to 3.5% of their overall profits from retail sales, which is why a few have dropped the retail sales side of their business. Oil majors look for profits from both there upstream and downstream business units.
On the other hand, there lubricant division, which spends very large amounts on R&D, that is the oil we put in out engines and fluids we use in the hydraulics’ and other car lubricants, these are not taxed to death at all, and do make a pretty healthy profit for the company.
My understanding is that these oil majors work very closely with the F1 teams on the engine oil and hydraulic fluid. Yes there are a few chemists attempting to work there magic on the petrol (Fuel) but that is very strictly controlled by FIA. So no real room to work on new – better products in the fuel (petrol) side, but lots of room on the other parts, which so far most governments haven’t taxed to death….yet.
If i remember right a f1 car can be run on Petrol Pump, I think 5th gear followed a man buying one of schumachers F1 ferrari’s I think it would run but maybe not get the ultimate horsepower out of it. I can’t see shell sponsoring a ferrari, when everyone knows its on fuel supplied as the Kudos comes from taglines on adverts like fuelled by Shell etc Id have also thought there was competition between all the petro chemists in f1 and Id have thought the lubricants/fuels etc would be one of the most likely things to actually make it down to road cars. I personally can’t see a benefit to a single fuel supplier as long as it is continued to be monitored by scrutineers regarding octane levels etc
what happens if pirelli play hard ball and say no 5 year contract now or we walk at the end of the year ….18 inch from michelin next year ?
you cannot be serious
For all the obvious reasons this is a bad thing. But one more reason is that oil companies – unlike almost all the other sponsors – actually have a strong link to the performance of the cars and our road cars.
Thanks Joe.
Having read the press release, I am not sure whether this agreement provides for a single supplier, or requires a tender and a sole supplier.
The roles and responsibilities of the FIA and Commercial Rights Holder in the process are also hard to figure.
As you say, this could cause some grief.
William