03/06/2009
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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When the remaining nine members of FOTA signed up for the 2010 season, I really did think that that peace had broken out in Formula One. Silly me. There was a catch, there always is a catch, but I was taken in.
The catch is that FOTA wants to lay down conditions, which is much the same as saying that it wants to over-ride the FIA and determine some of the rules. A rule is a condition and vice versa. It is a condition, for example, that to compete in Formula One, you must use a 2.4-litre V8 engine restricted to 18,000 rpm.
We are witnessing a struggle for power, as we did 30 years in the FISA/FOCA 'War' and much of the impetus is money. Regular readers will know my mantra: Always Follow The Money.
The FISA/FOCA War came down to who was in charge of F1 and how the money should be shared. The FOCA teams, under the umbrella of Bernie and Max felt that as the teams put on the show, they should get the lion's share of the loot. The FIA believed that some of the money coming into the sport, largely through television (which meant that teams could charge sponsors more) would be spread throughout the sport.
In an informal way, Silverstone did just that. It was not the only circuit to do so, but it serves as an example. The Grand Prix made a healthy profit and that subsidised the other meetings including those held on a Saturday when the drivers for any race outnumbered the spectators. Because Silverstone is owned by the BRDC, a non-profit making organisation, the money went back into the sport.
There were empty seats at Monaco, and that is unheard of. There have been empty seats everywhere. Time was when the organisers of the Japanese GP had to hold a lottery to see who got tickets. Prices for seats have gone through the roof, but then organisers have been held in a cleft stick, the cost of staging a race has increased by ten per-cent each year and that is way above the rate of inflation in most countries.
CVC, which owns the rights to F1, has to pay two million pounds a week to pay the interest on the loan it raised to buy those rights. Circuits have to pay more and they have to pass that on to you and I, the mugs in the grandstand. Anyone who buys a ticket is helping CVC which hopes, in the long term, to make a substantial profit and more than a billion pounds has been mentioned.
Organisers, without who no race could take place, do not have their own representative body. Some people have been askance at the idea of a two-tier system among teams, but there are two tiers of organisers. We have the regular, long-established, organiser, and we have those who are subsidised by governments as a show case for their country. Turkey, for example, wishes to join the EU, which is reluctant to accept it, and its race is part that agenda.
Formula One teams could organise their own show. For 1979, a group of leading American teams formed CART in conjunction with the Sports Car Club of America. There was still a USAC National Championship in 1979, with a bunch of no-hopers plus AJ Foyt, but then USAC bowed to the inevitable and so North American open-wheel racing was stable for many years, until the Indy Racing League was formed.
As part of its sabre rattling, Ferrari got hoity toity and sneered at some of the outfits which have expressed a desire to enter F1 next year. The fact is that the World Championship will still be the World Championship with or without Ferrari.
At the end of 1951, Alfa Romeo announced its withdrawal from motor sport. BRM could not be relied on to turn up to races and French firms such as Lago-Talbot could offer no competition since their government had imposed swingeing taxes on all manufacturers in order to pay for a welfare programme. In 1952 and '53, the World Championship was run to Formula Two though there were still non-championship F1 races on the calendar.
The World Championship did not lose status by being run to Formula Two, in fact it benefited by the number and diversity of entrants.
On 1st January, 1961, every 1500cc F2 car woke up to find itself transformed into an F1 car. There were 22 F1 races in 1961, though only eight counted for the World Championship. There was Formula One everywhere, often with the very best drivers.
Nobody said that these were only Formula Two cars with a new name, the World Championship bestows its own magic.
Ferrari restricts its production and must have the highest profit margin of any manufacturer. Aston Martin, Porsche and Audi all sell better-engineered, and better built, cars at a much lower price. Ferrari is basically like a mega-expensive handbag, part of the appeal is that you display the fact that are able to pay serious money for something not that special. In keeping with that perception, Ferrari has just opened a shop in Regent's Street, London. If you cannot afford a car, you can flash a key ring.
When John Barnard became Ferrari's Chief Designer, he had a Mondiale as his company car. A journalist asked him what he thought of it and he replied honestly. He had to apologise later.
Barnard's view was shared by most leading F1 designers well into the 1990s, yet Ferrari still sold cars.
Ferrari needs Formula One in order to maintain its mystique, and profit margin. It has not had a serious racing programme outside of F1 for nearly forty years.
Now we know that not only does Ferrari get more money than anyone else, but since 1998, it has had the right to veto changes in rules. In the current edition of Motor Sport magazine, Damien Smith picks up on something that Adrian Newey said in an interview with the magazine last year. While working for McLaren, Adrian devised a pioneering energy recovery system and it was initially cleared by the FIA. Later it was deemed illegal. Damien Smith draws the inevitable conclusion.
There have been many of us who have thought that FIA stands for Ferrari's Internal Agency. It seems we were right.
In 1998, Ferrari was given a veto. It had last won the Constructors' Championship in 1983, but then it won in 1999, 2000, 2001.... In no other sport does one competitor enjoy an officially sanctioned advantage. It makes a mockery of the very idea of sport.
Despite its special privileges, previously a well-kept secret, Ferrari sneers at teams who want to be in Formula One and that is not sporting behaviour.
A small town football club, Burnley, has won promotion to the Premier League in England. If one of the big and successful clubs sneered at Burnley there would be outrage and rightly so, the club has earned its place. Ferrari does exactly that and nobody turns a hair.
If Ferrari withdrew from Formula One it would leave a large gap, right until the start of the next race. The sport has lost great teams in the past and yet survived. No team or individual is bigger than any sport. No team or individual must be allowed to think that they have special rights within a sport.
I know about Ferrari's fan base, it resembles that of Manchester United. Just as many Man. U. fans could not point to Manchester on a blank map of England, so many Ferrari fans could not pinpoint Maranello on a blank map of Italy.
In Britain at present we are going through political turmoil because some MPs have been fiddling their expenses. The number increases daily, but at least 16 have jumped or been pushed, with no doubt more to follow. Tax payers are not overjoyed to discover that they have paid for someone's moat to be cleaned, or for a floating island in a pond to accommodate ducks, or for the husband of one to watch pornographic movies.
As a result of the ongoing scandal, all the main parties have promised reforms, wide-ranging ones at that.
Formula One needs wide-ranging reforms as well. The enthusiast who may save up for one Grand Prix a year should not be paying through the nose for a ticket so that CVC can furnish its debt.
People have condemned a two-tier system for teams, but we have a two-tier system for organisers which is why there is no Formula One in North America. We have the traditional organising clubs and also government-sponsored races to suit a wider agenda. Turkey wants to join the EU despite most of it not being in Europe. The country still has appalling abuses of human rights, but hosting a Grand Prix makes it appear to be modern.
Formula One needs root and branch reform of its financial structure. The ordinary enthusiast who has to pay their own way should not be assisting CVC which contributes nothing to the sport, but only takes from it.
Ferrari will always be welcome, but on the same terms as every other team. It is a scandal that Ferrari gets paid more and has a veto. It is scandalous that Ferrari thinks it may mock aspiring teams such as Lola. which has survived in the world's toughest market, the manufacture of production racing cars, for more than fifty years. More than fifty years, that is something Ferrari never managed to do.
Just as I've had it with the whingeing from the Hamilton camp, so I've had it with Ferrari. Formula One should be about racing, not about threats, cheap jibes, and the behaviour of an opera diva.
It is nonsense to say that Formula One needs Ferrari. We currently have Formula One without Ferrari, unless you count a single podium finish. Some of their antics, however, have been amusing going on comical.
As Bernie himself has said, Ferrari was bought. There are some unpleasant words to describe people who can be bought. There is also the matter that anyone who offers a bribe is likely to accept one otherwise bribery would not enter their head.
Mike Lawrence
mike@pitpass.com
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