On-track action, off-track politicking. Won’t someone tell Max Mosley that we want real racing between real race teams?The Turkish Grand Prix was a classic. There was some on-the-edge overtaking, and an intriguing strategic battle. And, yet again, Jenson Button came out on top. The Briton continues to show the kind of ability that allows him to deliver the speed at crucial moments, a quality that really puts him into the league of the Schumachers and Alonsos of this world. As a technological spectacle, it once again underlined F1’s position as the acme of world motorsport.
Sadly, politics could result in this level of drama being lost completely next year, as the powers-that-be continue playing Macchiavellian games. Actually, it beats me how the governing body of a sport can justify riding roughshod over the opinions of its competitors. But, at this point, it seems that is what the FIA and Max Mosley are bent on doing.
Members of FOTA, the Formula One Teams’ Association, are still pretty much united in their opposition to Mosley’s $45 million budget cap for next season, and have come up with alternative proposals. And, in what seems to me like a reasonable attempt to break the stalemate, almost all of them have “entered” for 2010 subject to the budget cap being rescinded.
Mosley is no doubt pleased that Williams and Force India have “broken ranks”, but they are special cases. Frank Williams apparently has a contract with Bernie Ecclestone until 2012, and has apparently been advanced funds against that, which means he could have been sued had he not submitted an unconditional entry. And Force India has bank loans subject to similar provisos. In fact, Force India boss Vijay Mallya is appealing against his team’s suspension by FOTA, pleading that he agrees with ther stance, but legally had no other option than to submit an official entry. So the FOTA solidarity is not as fragile as the FIA would have us believe.
In Turkey all the team principals had a meeting with the drivers, and the F1 aces, pretty much to a man, agreed with the FOTA stance. Some, including double world champion Fernando Alonso, said outright that they would remain loyal to FOTA whatever happens.
Mosley, however, continues to plough his furrow at right angles to all of this, saying that the FOTA members must launch their own series if they don’t like his new regs. I wonder whether he has painted himself into a corner with the budget-capped entries. Would they perhaps have some kind of legal recourse if he were now to accept FOTA’s non-capped cost-saving proposals?
The rumour-mill says there could be some famous names among the “cappers ” – Brabham, March and Aston Martin have been mentioned. Mosley apparently believes this will compensate for a Ferrari exit. He couldn’t be more wrong: some of these new names are simply empty shells. March is simply a name, and Brabham – owned by a German operation that has apparently also acquired the Leafield factory of Super Aguri (nee Arrows) – could face legal action from none other than the octogenarian Sir Jack himself.
Mosley seems to have forgotten that F1 is the flagship formula of world motorsport. It has achieved that status because it has professional teams spending what it takes to be the best. It cannot hope to maintain that position with a rag-tag bunch of budget no-hopers. Then one would do better watching the Le Mans Series. Or Indycars. I’m sure the top teams in those series spend a lot more than $40 milliion…
Certainly, containing costs is an issue in these tough economic times. And no-one knows that better than FOTA. Question is, why won’t the FIA president listen?
