As Bernie Ecclestone’s trial begins in Munich, there have been a lot of reports about the rise to power of Ms Sacha Woodward-Hill, the Chief Legal Officer of the Formula One group.
There have been various confused stories suggesting that she is an Australian, and even one I saw that reckoned she came from Austria. The truth is rather less glamorous. Ms Woodward Hill was born in Hendon, Middlesex in 1969. Her father was called Hill and her mother Woodward and thus she adopted the two names. She was educated at Ashford School in Kent and won a place at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge to study law in 1987.
After graduating with an MA in law in 1990 she began working to qualify as a solicitor with the venerable London law firm Taylor Joynson Garrett. After qualifying in 1993 she stayed with the company for a couple of years before moving to Allen & Overy in 1995 and then the Formula One group in 1996. The confusion over her nationality appears to come from the fact that she replaced Australian lawyer Judith Griggs at that time, as Griggs went back to Australia to become the first CEO of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. She would later return to Europe and until recently was Chief Operating Officer of Allsport Management, a Formula One group company, based in Geneva.
Woodward Hill became head of Formula One legal affairs in 2001 and is thus well-versed in the ways of the Formula One group, after 18 years in the business.
Although Ecclestone has sometimes talked of being replaced by a woman, it is still thought likely that if Ecclestone is replaced it will be by an outsider. The business continues to do very well.
The apologists for the Formula One group are currently trying to make out that although the Formula One group as a whole generates $1.7 billion a year, the profits are down because the teams are taking more money.
It is true that the teams are taking about six percent more than they were getting in 2012, as a result of the new Concorde Agreement deals, but this cannot be blamed for the drop of 32 percent in the profits. The reality is that the company seems to have loaned most of its profits to other companies in the group as a way of reducing its tax burden. The argument that further money was given to the FIA is also misconstrued as the federation did not get an additional $40 million as has been suggested. In fact the FIA was already getting $11.5 million a year from FOM and this fee was increased by $13.5 million. There was a one-off $5 million signing fee for the federation as part of the Concorde Agreement deal but the FIA had to pay back $460,000 of this in order to buy a one percent share in the Formula One group, which was included in the deal.
The additional FIA money to get its revenues up to $40 million from F1 was screwed out of the teams and the drivers in entry and superlicence fees that amounted to an extra $6 million per annum.
joeblogsf1 
Wasn’t she one of the Mole’s secretaries? 🙂
No, they were all called Penelope and woe betide the man who calls a agent “a secretary”… His body will be found floating in the Thames, down Tilbury way…
I loved the Mole!
I bet she is one of the Penelopes then, in deep cover!
I didn’t – it was just in-joke babble
Ahhh the Penelopies – we need the mole to resurface.
What happened to the F1 Mole Joe? His presence is greatly missed in these troubled times.
I miss The Mole…
Heh, I saw that bit of apologistic disinformation in the Telegraph and wondered how long you’d take to debunk it. Keep up the good work. 🙂
When you speak of F1 Group “generating” $1.7 Bn per year, I take that to be gross income, correct?
EBITDA
And the beat goes on “Sonny and Cher” if I recall?
As the Daily Mail has it …”the person to whom the 83-year-old Briton’s load will fall is Australian Sacha Woodward-Hill”. Also their short write up is full of salacious undertones.
I don’t know if Joe respects their writer “Duncan” but it seems he could do with a cold shower.
I did mention the the man from The Mail that he had made a mistake but he said he was sure, so I left him to get on with it… Don’t know anyone called Duncan.
So there is FOM’s reason to support a cost cap!
You have to laugh, the FIA have actually paid FOM for a stake which effectively handcuffs them to FOM (due to FOM’s grip and veto on all sales of shares) for a share of the dividend in something the FIA actually own! All you can say is Bernie is a genius!
Had the FIA bought a share in CVC that would be understandable although CVC is down atm a good time to buy.
While Bernie may get off, or may buy his way out of jail with his community chest card, I have a strong feeling that his time in F1 is nearly at an end. He will go before it collapses.
Bring back the mole
Off piste question by your leave, Joe. Are there any published F1 specific authors/critics whom you respect, who might have written about the Senna/Prost rivalry?
If any such exist, please recommend as it is an era before my time. I’m hoping there might be books rather than articles.
Worthwhile criticism on motor racing as a sport seems rare. In truth I know of no such author in our present era …. Joe excepted.
There are a whole load of people
I’ve not read it, so I can’t comment on its quality, and I’m not familiar with the author, but there exists a book called ‘Senna versus Prost’ by Malcolm Folley that I’ve seen in quite a few bookshops.
It’s very good.
I have read most of the books on Ayrton Senna and the best, in my opinion is “The Death of Ayrton Senna” by “Richard Williams”.
I would agree with that
My thanks to all above
But why this mention of the powerful lady at all Joe? Is she to have a starring role in Germany? FOM is not on trial (though mayb……..)
Could this trial invalidate the original suspect sale perhaps? In which case a pretty kettle of fish is to be seen, lawyers rubbing their hands, assured of a full lifetime’s employment and probably their grandchildren will be similarly engaged.
Because she is in the news.
Hmmm… intra group loans and claiming its for tax efficiency…. always makes a banker suck the air between his teeth. Clever financial people can do some very naughty things with that kind of structure. I wonder what the intra group collateral is for the loans….
What does she look like? I’ve scoured the internet and could find just ONE image, http://www.autoracing1.com/Images/2013/Mugshots/Woodward-Hill.jpg. Surely, there must be a load of journalists out there who would jump at the chance to get exclusive photos of the woman who now controls F1. Is she in possession of the invisible cloak?
You cannot trust the Internet. If you do an image search for her, you will get three pictures. The first two are NOT her. Despite his own adventures, Mr E has always believed in discretion and so his staff tend to have public profiles as flat as the Chinese plains.
We heard it here first, and now we’ve heard it from the horses mouth.