06/06/2006
NEWS STORY
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The financial bonus which Ferrari has long been receiving from Formula One has at last been cancelled out write Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid.
As has been widely documented, for well over 20 years, the only source of revenue that the teams have been receiving from F1 has come from sharing in 47% of the money from television rights deals. The only exception to this has been Ferrari which was paid an additional sum from the sport's revenues.
Obviously this has long been a bone of contention with Ferrari's peers. It was one of 15 points which remained to be resolved just one week before the signing of the now-famous memorandum of understanding between the sport's owners CVC/Formula One Management and the carmakers. After hours of negotiations in Jersey, the carmakers only put their signatures on the dotted line after CVC agreed to directly pay for the extra sum which Ferrari receives.
There were of course 14 other coups scored by the carmakers, many of which have been kept under a veil of secrecy. One of these concerned the amount of free travel support given to the teams by the commercial rights holder. Pitpass can reveal that under the Concorde Agreement each team currently receives free transport to races outside Europe for two cars and 10,000 kilos of freight as well as 20 air tickets. This has now increased significantly.
It may not be long before more of the carmakers' other triumphs leak out but we can rest assured that with Ferrari's extra payment now coming directly from CVC rather than the sport's revenues, all teams are (sort of) equal.