Jun 18 2009
“The bickering is so bitter…
…because the stakes are so low.” I once heard that phrase used to describe the world of academia and office politics.
But what I’m referring to now is the current bickering that threatens to tear Formula One apart. This time next year, or even later on this year, who knows what we’ll be watching going around the racing circuits of the world?
Far as we are from the epicenter of the crisis, Europe, the most I can tell is this : quarrels are nothing new to F1, but for the past twenty or so years, Bernie Ecclestone has managed to keep a cap on things, and keep most of the money too.
Unfortunately FIA president Max Mosely seems to have decided that a budget cap of 40 million pounds is the only solution to saving F1, and paradoxically endangering it immediately by making most of the Formula One teams very unhappy.
He could take a page out of MotoGP’s book – the FIM (motorcycle equivalent of the FIA) once tried the same thing, upon which the constructors and teams overthrew them. Now rule-making decisions lie with the Grand Prix Commission, a committee of all involved parties and MotoGP is all the better for it.
Budget caps can work, but not dropping from 400 million pound budgets (like Ferrari’s rumoured annual cost of its F1 programme) to 40 million in one year.
First of all involving ‘forensic financial analysts and accountants’ into a ’sport’ is just ridiculous. There are a thousand and one ways to make money and a million ways to hide it. Just ask any illegal business.
Secondly, as double-world champ Fernando Alonso has said, modern F1 is now probably more of a business than a sport. Cut the money and you’ll anger even more people: sponsors, suppliers, personnel, etcetera.
In contrast the weekend of June 13-14 saw yet another edition of the superb 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, with Peugeot finally grabbing a win and the past dominating Audi only in third place. It was also great to watch 24 hours of non-stop racing without a shade of politics interfering.
Back in F1 though, the bickering continues with no end in sight. Honestly as a fan of motorsport myself, if F1 were to break into two separate series, as happened to CART and Indy racing in America, I don’t think I’d watch either. Let’s hope that the fans still have one championship to follow at the end of this year.
