It’s an appropriate time of year to discuss what’s gone on in 2008 – if you look at any site you’ll find some Year in Review type deal – but I want to focus on what’s to come rather than what’s been.
Most specifically, the interesting brouhaha brewing in Formula 1 between Bernie Ecclestone and the Formula One Teams Association – fronted by Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo – has really caught my attention.
Partly because it could have a large impact on the sport over the next year/years, but more importantly because I like a good ding-dong.
You can find out all that’s going on via Autosport’s site, but basically it involves Montezemolo wanting teams to get a bigger share of the revenue, and Ecclestone – not surprisingly – saying no they don’t, and anyway Ferrari get about $80million a year more anyway cos of their heritage deal so why doesn’t Luca shut the hell up?
All of FOTA seems to agree with Luca however, so Bernie looks like he’s going to have a bit of a fight on his hands. FOTA think – according to vice-chairman and Toyota team boss John Howett – that the money should be shared more in favour of the teams that take part, rather than ‘the property holder or the commercial rights-holder’ (that’ll mostly be Bernie).
So it’s going to be like a Christmas bust-up down the Queen Vic sooner or later, and it would seem Bernie’s a bit worried that FOTA are trying to take the power of running F1 off him, and that FOTA are flexing their muscles to show him that’s exactly what they’re up to.
Interestingly, FIA president Max Mosley has said that the teams have never been more united than they are now, so there’s certainly momentum there to get things done.
So we’ll see, but for you and me, it’s going to provide some good talking points.
Strangely Bernie came to power by running the Formula One Constructors Association…
HAHAHA, the FOTA are screwing Bernie royal. I really don’t care. Just give the damn teams more money, the end. The teams make F1 not him.
Psst anyone else noticed Bernie is about 300 years old, about to have to give away a large chunk of his money in a divorce, maybe he will retire gracefully from F1…Ok,ok silly idea.
I think that the teams need a large say in how the sport is run, because the dictators are forcing people, like Honda and that yet to arrive Prodrive (hopefully they’ll pick up Honda’s pieces), out of the sport. Anyone with a basic grasp of economics will know, that if the teams value F1 less, it will naturally become cheaper. And while I respect cost cutting measures as they would – in theory – invite more small teams into the sport, KERS is full of lies. Firstly, it is hugely expensive – Mclaren spent £80m developing theirs – and secondly, it isn’t good for the planet. It is reusing heat otherwise lost, but that heat isn’t CO2 or anything. It just makes people go faster.
I would like to see tighter regulations on money spent, for example: max. £150m spent on R&D. No testing during the season. No improvements to cars during season. This would cut costs, and teams would have to proritize, and similar budgets would make teams more even.
This may have seemed slightly ramble-ish, sorry.
If the following link is confirmed,Honda have found a buyer-which can only be good news for F1 and all the other teams involved.F1 is about the teams and not Bernie,hopefully his ego will get over it..btw,sorry if this is old news to you.
http://www.f1complete.com /content/view/11210/1/
So poor Bernie’s getting screwed from both sides, first the wife divorcing him and taking half, (although didn’t he put most of it in her name, if so he’s really screwed) now his old friends want the rest of it.
Ever feel everyone’s out to get you.
It’s a nice attempt from Bernie to try and wedge some friction between Ferrari and the rest of the teams by his childish outburst claiming Ferrari receive $80M more than everyone else as a result of the deal signed in 2003 to prevent a break-away series.
…too bad it’s not working for the little troll.
Luca gets a “high-five” from me by sticking it to Bernie. It’s ridiculous that Bernie gets %50 of the pie while the other %50 is split between 10 teams. There isn’t much a team can do with %5 in F1 and be competitive, especially when that %5 is used in the majority of their season budget.
Bernie has bullied is way for far too long, destroying F1’s link to it’s own history and to it’s fans. Gouging the fans, the teams, the drivers and the venues while amassing more and more wealth while F1 is slowing beginning to drip back to the stone age of racing by crippling its technological agenda just to prevent teams from going broke.
He’s (Bernie) piggishly content with sitting back padding his wallet while F1 slowly becomes a floundering spec series. Watching as the teams cut budget, dumb down technology, lay off staff all the while Bernie raises the prices for entere fees, for both teams and venues. It should be high time the FOM start taking cutbacks too, deservingly so, since it’s the teams and drivers people pay to see and tune in around the world to watch. Not some 4′3″ greedy troll. The teams should be getting at least %80 of the pie while Bernie settles for %20. Because without performers that sad little bitch doesn’t have a show to begin with.
Maybe, just maybe, with more of a proper take in funds we’ll stop seeing a revolving door of back running teams and maybe some incentive for new teams to come into the sport so we can get back to a 24 car grid.
Bernie needs to go before he completely destroys the sport before he hits the dirt. Go Luca, go FOTA.
I have very few regrets in life, except one which still haunts me.
A few years ago, I, an ex F1 fan, was being driven through Chelsea (I was in passenger seat). The car turned off the main road when a short, white haired chap walks without looking in front of the car. A split second after he’d got onto the pavement did I realise it was our dearly beloved Bernie!
To this day I ask myself would I really have pushed the taxi drivers right foot down on the accelerator, if I’d recognised him a moment earlier? Is the bigger picture, saving F1 worth time behind bars for me? Course it is!
If only…if only!
Darn! What a missed chance, eh, worthyblue?
I just think he should be fired. He’s old and really old fashioned in his thoughts, and really really greedy
Bernie has painted himself into a corner. He can’t possibly win an argument with FOTA. F1 wouldn’t exist without the teams and Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes and others will just take their toys and play somewhere else. Everyone is clear about who has caused F1 to become a farce and those two clowns should just exit gracefully (if that’s possible).
Never really liked car manufacturers buying race teams. They tend to overspend and quit later. Can’t change that anymore. Good regulations without funny steward decisions would make it easier for F1 to survive. The last few years all has been done to piss off the fans with as climax the aero rules for 2009 which will make the cars unacceptable ugly.
Seems decision makers lost focus completely which is a shame, a big shame !
I think it’s important that the teams do get a share of the money in the sport. However it should be in proportion, if the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and BMW are already earning vast amounts of money themselves, then they shouldn’t get as big a share as a small team like Force India, who probably earn very little in comparison.
If some sort of deal can be made, then it should encourage more teams and investment in the sport, and therefore, better racing, isn’t that what we all want really?
This has been a laugh from the begining. I loved how when Luca first asked for money Bernie basically said
’shut up you already get a load of extra money and help’
Apart from laughing at that its true Bernie has top be stopped. Fair enough you get what you negociate but claiming you love a sport then taking 50% for doing almost nothing compared to the teams is sick.
Reading a F1 book from the 80s though it seems the sport has been turmoil….
@ catersam
history of the humankind is a history of innovations so I think forcing people to stop thinking is not the right way to go. F1 as every other form of motorsport is about racing. do we (racing fans) need multi-millions motorhomes in the paddock ? do we need all this parties, celebrities, press officers keeping an eye on the drivers and telling them what they should say to the press to make the team / sponsors / etc. looking good and so on and so on ?
my answer is “no”. get all that shit out of F1 and you have savings. focus on racing and developing the car to be faster then the others. what really matters is time between red lights going off and black-and-white flag waving at the finish line.
go luca!
bernie has far too mcuh power for someone who does nothing for the sport. he needs to be fired, then the only decision left for him to make will be just how far he should **** off.
Hit him where it hurts. Bernie alone has cause more grief and farces in F1 than all the drivers in the last 50 years.
Remember the US Grand Prix when every team bar 3 told Bernie flat out they would not race due to tire failures. He was still bleating that “something will get worked out these guys want to race” with 2 minutes to go till the start of the race. While he was busy swaning around the paddock, ignoring his responsabilities, the race started and turned in to a farce.
And then there is his recent blurb about the frankly idiotic idea of medals instead of points.
Stick it to him FOTA, show him where the real power is. Him and his buddy Mosley should both gtfo of the sport for good.
celtictiger, well said!
i wish people would lay off of max. he’s done far more good than harm for the sport.
Before peeps get all excited about Bernie on the back foot, remember one thing: nobody has beaten Bernie with a deal, he is the master of The Deal.
The Bernie and Max Show over the years has led the sport, the manufacturers and teams exactly where they want them to go. Classic example was Max’s chuntering on about a 1-make engine; what happened? He got what he wanted when the teams all sat down to make happy.
Bernie has out-lasted and out-thought every FOTA-type organisation that has challenged him. Last two years teams and manufacturers were all about to leave F1 when they realised that they couldn’t.
Why? Because Bernie had sewn up all the major tracks and promoters years ago. With no disrespect intended to the owners, fans and promoters, nobody is going to see a F1 GP at Mallory Park or Windermere. And then, to rub salt into the woulds, promptly bought Ferrari. When Ferrari left the whole thing fell down.
Bernie thinks more quickly on his feet because he is one man. The teams have all their owners and Team managers to consult with and sponsors etc. By the time they have consensus on the date of the meeting, Bernie is long gone to the next idea.
This is a guy that sold the rights to F1 to the banks at a ridiculously inflated price and bought it back for a third of what he paid for.
Do not underestimate the little man, he’s way ahead of all of us…I hate his guts for what he’s done to our sport, but damn, the little sh*t is sneaky good, and I admire him for it. I’ll shake his hand gladly if ever we meet, but the othr hand will be aiming a punch.
A big part of what makes F1 so special are the deals that take place between the seperate parties.
The near constant bickering & bartering; the changes of allegiance; the power struggles. They are at times more interesting than the racing.
No other motorsport has such a range of characters, and all seem intent on bringing about the downfall of others for their own gain.
I have no idea what the outcome may be but Luca vs Bernie could be massive (& I’m sure Max & Ron will get involved too).
It would only be fitting for the FOTA to overtrow the FOM/FIA. Bernie took the reigns as the chairman of the FOCA being the owner of the brabham team and somehow ended up claiming ownership of the sport as a whole after fighting off the FISA. I don’t know what happened there exactly, but some other teambosses must have been sleeping while it did. What right would Bernie have to own F1 more than anyone else did. It’s kind of like claiming the moon.
History repeating? At least the team have a justified interest in the sport…
Anyway, I’d be happy to see Bernie go away, if only to see there’s some justice left in the world. Just jet off to a remote location and leave F1 alone, he has done enough damage already.
Remember early 90s, trouble started with Balestre.
He left, Mosley came and for a while things were just about racing. Now the trouble started with Mosley and his aversion to Mr.Dennis and his preference to Ferrari and things were getting worse. To my opinion one should never have a job like that for such a long period. Like politics it should be for 4 or 5 years.
For Bernie one has to admit that he made the sport what it is today. He should however keep the legacy of F1 in mind, a race in Monza or Spa or Montreal is way more important than Bahrain or wherever you find this Tilke tracks. How in the world the teams ever agreed over this financials will probably always be a mystery and i don´t care.
What worries is that the cars are going to look like mud for the sake of overtaking. There is and was overtaking but the teams prefer to do it mostly over fuel stops to avoid risks, can´t blame them.
Ban the fuel stops and give them max fuel loads per race for the sake of green and image and ban KERS! And if you wanne see wheel banging and cars flying off all the time watch the juniors in F3 or whatever. When you see your football team win a game by 1-0, the match can still have been exciting to watch, they also don´t make the goals bigger to see higher scores.
F1 is F1 and should stay that way. It is the Champion Leagues of Motor racing! Give us V10s or V12s, they should be hard to drive and cool and fast and furious and good looking!
what should happen is bernie should give equal money to each and no more if they’ve got heritage then we should see what happens
F1 teams want to beat Bernie?
3 words: HA HA HA (yeah, i know, it’s the same)
Listen, Bernie made F1 what it is today, and sorry, what the F*** are the team pissin’ about???
Bernie wants 50% He should, he organises the whole damn’ championship since donkeys-years.
The money the teams get from their sponsors is btw rediculous-astronomically high.
They still not happy? F*ck ‘em go to indycar or something.
I am pro an equal budget for al teams (If ferrari don’t want that,screw ‘em. THey really don’t have the ball to step out of F1).
@omc
yeah, you’re right they should get rid of all that crap on the paddock.
Maybe, if Bernie Eccelstone disappeared from F1, and the teams got as near to 100% of the income as possible, then they could avoid cost cutting. The only problem is new teams couldn’t afford to catch up unless they were funded by a billionaire.
Also, leave Max Mosley alone. Sure, he’s done some bad things, but overall he’s been positive for the sport, as F1Yankee said.
There should be no rules on technology in F1. This would improve normal cars too – lots of technology slowly filters down to normal cars, but starts in F1.
But, as I said in comment no.3, if F1 is valued less it’ll get cheaper.
in a time like this i couldn not help but agree with the FOTA to get more money, we have seen a major player like honda pull out of the field due to financial concerns. i honestly think that the situation would have been alot different if f1 teams have a bigger share of money
I thought they were going to run a session on Friday where the fastest person won a prize of money at a race weekend. It is supposed to get rid of practice sessions.
imagine if bernie lost power. no medal system. even more money and biasm to ferrari. this is bad. stop shouting WE WANT MONTEZEMELO TO RUN F1 when itll mean ferrari win everything and the rules will be bad.
Now that Ecclestone has spilt his beans imagine if Max Mosley ( di Montezemolo’s friend) had to do the same!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will we see a quick investigation and court cases in Paris and Italy by the FIA and perhaps Ferrari be stripped of all constructor’s points since 2003 after being found in breach of International Sporting Code as in the saga of 2007 with McLaren? Or am I just dreaming.
I taught that with a prestigious name like Ferrari and others it was a gentleman’s sports not a Mafia like business.
@JRico
If someone spills the beans I think it is Bernie that would look bad as HE bought Ferrari’s loyalty and not the other way round.
@Jeroen
You say “I am pro an equal budget for al teams (If Ferrari don’t want that,screw ‘em. THey really don’t have the ball to step out of F1)”
Well so why did teams choose Luca to represent them? Maybe he has more balls than all the others!
and by the way. No team should get a higher cut whatsoever! I hope this money thing gets sorted asap as we will see less and less cars on the grid if not. Millions go into the pocket of one man when it is many people forking out their own. Just doesn’t sound right.
Bernie, just retire and go find some island in the pacific and let the manufacturers run their own sport the way it should be.
I agree that getting rid of alot of the glitz and celeb parties would save a fortune BUT those parties bring extra coverage and attention which is the reason F1 sponsership is so lucrative.
@ Redphyve
Your right, Bernie cant be beat, its sad but true.
@ Roland
me, and few millions of others F1 fans, are watching it in TV. what I see is warm-up lap, race, results during parade lap after the race and podium ceremony. sometimes top-3 interview. that’s all. “look who has bigger cock” paddock contest do not find its way into TV coverage. I understand party after the race and some attractions for fans watching the race on track but it all went to far.
sponsors are in F1 to attract us, customers, and if we are watching races it’s because of racing. if F1 will not bring excitement on track there would be no spectators in front of TV (millions compared with thousands on the track) and no potential customers to buy. for me it’s as simple as that.
how big are motorhomes in MotoGP ? much smaller then in F1 but I do not care – I watch the race to see gods like Rossi doing miracles on two wheels. Races like Laguna are worth to sacrifice few hours of sleep.
That’s what I want from motorsport – die hard racing and top-level technology.
ps. there is a hope. Bernie will be 79 this year and soon mother nature may force him to step out. all the best for him but I would prefer if he was just spectator.
It’s about time that Bernie gave up the vast percentage of revenue for F1 – it’s financially in trouble, teams have pulled out, he can’t fill the grid, he’s a billionaire – can’t he see what he should do for the good of the sport?
The big concern is not the cars – we will get used to them – but Bernie has taken his eye off the ball:
1. Spanish racists were just having a laugh;
2. His failure to realise that it is important to keep Grands Prix at its cultural centre whilst adding to it;
3. Linked to 2. his inability to realise that his screwing the circuits for every penny is potentially killing the sport. One only has to look at his hatred of BRDC and therefore Silverstone, his refusal to compromise with Canada; the problems associated with France, Germany and China. The latter should be an eye-opener as he can not assume that all of the third / new world circuits will want to prop up the grand prix tour if their economies suffer;
4. Medal system. First of all how would many feel if the 2008 championship was won by Massa because he “won” in Belgium; secondly, it will make for some potential interest at the front but isn’t much of the interest about the smaller / mid-ranking teams getting a decent finish. If it is about the top three, why should we be interested if the plucky also ran moves from a qualifying 19th to a last lap finish in 8th place to secure his team’s only points position of the year? thitdly, if he wants to give more inducement for winning, why not have a revised points scoring system that reflects the difference. An example may be 12,8,6,5,4,3,2,1.
Tall Hammond is right. Just award more points for a win, why have a medal system. I never thought of making it 12 points for a win.
giving too much power to the teams may end up in having 3 teams ruling the sport and small teams may decide to quit as a consequence. Maybe some more money should be passed on to smaller teams and the season budget should capped to a more affordable level. 400M$ a season is outrageous considering that Ferrari is a small factory, McLaren is not a factory at all and Toyota has recently announced that they made a loss for the first time in history.
I think budget cup will not work. big teams may establish independent technology centers (formally they may be the departments of the manufacturer owning F1 team) which will serve consulting services to the team. the price for such a service can be low enough to stay within budget limit.
apart from supporting F1 team centers can do other car technology related work and so their expenses related strictly with F1 will be impossible to count.
in similar way red bull is creating car(s) for its two teams, red bull and torro rosso, already.
I would like to leave a broader comment on sport and money. They should not be mixed. Here in Germany you are not allowed to swim for your country if you don’t wear the suits of a certain manufacturer. That’s ridiculous! Same goes for F1.
There may be very good drivers out there who can’t fork over a million dollars. It like that “pay to play” scheme in the U.S. (Blagojevich). Money allways taints everything because surely some greedy [beeeeep] will turn up to collect his “share” and ruins it for the rest of us. Shame on these people!
what i dont understand is, how is making the cars go faster in the straight line and slower in the corners going to be more exciting to watch? would you rather see a car pass boringly on a straight or by tactically and skillfully on a corner.
Something of an aside, the cars have to be limited in the corners for safety resons. For a couple of decades now engineers have been capable of making cars faster than a driver can handle. Limiting cornering speeds have been one of the major factors driving rules changes in many racing series.
FIA = Ferrari Internationale de L’Automobile. I am currently studying motorsport logistics, managment and engineering at uni, the current news is extremmly depressing, motorsport is an escape from mundane politics, but over the past few years motorsport is worse to read about than the papers, But this has given me and fellow students the drive to get into the motorsport industry and shake things up abit, The UK is the home on motorspsort and as such should be the forerunner and leader within said field, not dictating and squeezing the life out of motorsport not just F1!, Bernie needs to get a life, the FIA needs to stop acting like a god, and as for the MSA, well i cant even find a word that can sum up the 4 or so people hiding away in there little office, acting like the vatican or such like for the FIA
Hi, this is unrelated. I think it is really bad that i’m in ireland (republic) and i can’t watch any videos. Replace “bad” with a swear word.
Its a sign of things to come, Honda pulling out. They’re huge, surely they could afford a F1 Team. Obviously not. They’ll need a few more revisions to the rules to make sure no one else pulls out
I suppose it’s the cost of running a none competitive team they were bothered with. I can see Ecclestone giving the teams a bigger slice, I’d say he’s digging his heels in to improve his bargaining position later.
Open your eyes: It takes two (2) to Tango.
Poor Bernie, I wonder what that 16ft amazonian saw in th squillionaire short arse in the first place? Its always semmed slightly odd that one man can become so bllody rich from a supposedly global sport, do you think anybody would allow someone to “own” football. Get rid of him asap and spread the love and money around.
As I see it, we may be headed for a Formula Ferrari soon, in a similar vein to Formula Ford, and Formula BMW, to name but two….
There already is a sort-of top-level Formula Ferrari – it’s called A1GP (“powered by Ferrari”).
And ironically it’s pretty damned good!
It’s run like a sort of Eurovision thing, with each one-car team representing a country – and drivers may change during the season. The good thing is that it has exactly that kind of gung-ho, friendly fun kind of atmosphere that F1 is sorely lacking nowadays – those guys really go for it on the track but are charmingly modest and approachable off-track.
You can watch it online live and in pretty good quality:
http://www.a1gp.com/About /Promotion.aspx?id=31
Yes, I got the season review dvd for A1 at christmas. A bit disapointed at first because I was expecting the F1 one.
I watched it anyway and it was brilliant. Much more action in one race than a whole season of F1!
@JRico
Yes it does take two to tango as always but the second one could have been anyone. Who would turn down an extra $80 million a year?
bernie got this all wrong, really the teams shoud run f1 themselves. and then just make their cars faster and more tracks and more teams so f1 would last longer and that we would have a great race and season and no idiotic stwerads who make the desions like spa
Exactly! Let the teams run the show, they put all the effort and all that Bernie is doing right now is actually removing Races that are in the F1 legend like Silverstone and Canada for new ones nobody really cares about except for himself and his big pocket.
This would put an end to all the bias stories and crap once and for all. Stewards would have their salaries paid by all the teams and no one could be bias.
No penalties for overtaking (ffs!) and similar BS. All that these new regulations have done so far is make the sport less exciting. Imagine every start of a season you have to get a pen and paper to see what is alowed and how things will run with the current situation. Qualifying has changed a million times, tyres too, pit stops too, engines not even going to comment etc. Money crisis my @$$, with all the cash Bernie gets F1 should have gold plated cars!
It’s been one of the best seasons racing I’ve ever seen, people do like to complain. As for the loss of Silverstone, big whoop. It’s a bugger to get in and out of and Donnington is a better track anyway. The two hairpins into the finish should offer some fantastic racing. A1 GP is alright but it needs a higher profile so it can attract better drivers and race on better circuits (well, the ones Bernie hasn’t locked into F1).
As far as i know,those damn rule changings every year cost a lot too. And make the actual race boring,I can already hear the Interview of a 2nd place driver:” because of some engine strategy,we could not go full throttle,we had to be careful cause we need the same engine for the next race too”.Irony ON/Well, just cost him his 1st place./Irony OFF
What was the real difference between the Teams 20 or 30 years ago?
They had a chance to solve problems the way they wanted to(i even remember a 6Wheeler. LOL).Now they have to do it the Ecclestone way.
It was inventive racing,because there was some room between the rules.If an invention was clever, the other teams picked it up,and integrated it into their cars aswell.This proces has stopped since those yearly rulechanges began, because the engeneers are busy enough to deal with that,instead of new improvements of trusted/tested design.Traction control or antidot brakes were not invented to make things slower, but safer, thats why its found in common cars today.And the Car Industry has greatly profited off that too.
Please Mr. Ekelstein, Leave Racing to the Racers/Teams/Sponsors.You can t live long enough to spend all the money you earned off of it.