21/06/2017
NEWS STORY
Since taking over as F1 supremo in January, following Liberty Media's purchase of Formula One, Chase Carey has not missed a single opportunity to make clear his feelings about the previous management.
Paying particular attention to the lack of vision, Carey has consistently taken swipes at the way Bernie Ecclestone ran F1 on behalf of its (previous) majority owners, CVC.
Speaking at the FIA Sport Conference in Geneva, Carey insisted that under its previous management the sport was "underserved".
"This sport has been underserved by a perpetual, short-term, deal of the day focus and one that has lacked a strategy, vision and longer-term plan, and a willingness to invest," he said.
"The sport didn't have an organisation before," he continued. "Bernie, to his credit, was a one-man show with financial and legal support.
"One of the things we have done is put an organisation in place that can support the sport and we will have the key people in by August.
"Priority one for us is still to make the sport and the competition on the track as exciting and engaging as it possibly can be," he insisted. "Just the nature of what we do on the track, whether it's rules, engines, costs, take time.
"We've had meetings on what is the next generation engine, that engine isn't going to get implemented in three months but it doesn't mean we haven't had multiple meetings," he said.
Fact is, CVC was in F1 for one reason and one reason only, to make money, and when one considers the money the investment company made from the sport over the years and from the final sale, Ecclestone certainly did his job as far as they were concerned.
Despite the talk, Liberty Media has bought F1 for the same reason, to make money, not least to pay off the numerous loans it took on in order to buy the sport.
While the sport has seen some positive changes in the opening months, the bigger issues are ahead; such matters as coming up with a set of rules that will please everyone while also calling on the bigger teams not only to accept less money but see it handed to the opposition in order that the smaller teams can more successfully challenge them.
Keeping all the teams in check, listening to the threats and then finding a solution acceptable to most - if not all - is the real challenge, and one for which Ecclestone's dictatorial attitude was best suited.
In the short term, with the British Racing Drivers' Club just weeks away from the deadline by which time it must decide whether to exercise the clause in its contract which effectively sees no British Grand Prix at Silverstone after 2019, Carey and his team will have the opportunity to demonstrate just how serious they are about the balancing act that is making a profit while keeping all and sundry on board and happy.