Oh Dear. Oh Dear...

Petroltorque

Moseley's given an ultimatum to the GPMA to sign up wihin 10 days. He seems a bit desperate. I don't see any teams clamouring to sign up in 2008. Moseley seems to be comitting the same Mistake that Tony George did in the US, believing that other teams will fill the competition void.
Unfortunately without the manufacturers presence to appease the big sponsors, television companies, and circuit owners, his vison of F1 is going to look pretty sick once that second asshole he's torn into the sport starts to smell!

Minardus

From Grandprix.com:

If the fighting gets rough

At a lunch for carefully selected members of the British media in F1, FIA President Max Mosley launched his latest campaign to try to convince the automobile manufacturers that they have to sign up for the new Concorde Agreement, which he wants to see as the guiding document for Formula 1 from 2008 to 2012.

Last week Mosley started talking of the idea that the Formula One group should not offer any revenue-sharing to the teams that have not yet signed up to this deal. He has now followed up by saying that the FIA will open entries for 2008 in March 2006 and will keep them open for only 10 days.

Up to now the entry for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship has been kept open until November 15 of the previous year. The idea of opening and closing entries almost two years before the championship in question will inevitably be seen as a political manoeuvre and there are certain to be suggestions that it is being done in an effort to stampede the automobile manufacturers into a situation in which they are forced to accept terms they do not wish to accept. Mosley clearly believes, along with many others in F1, that the manufacturers are incapable of actually creating their own championship and believes that all they ever do is talk about it. What he does not seem to consider is that there are other options available to the manufacturers which he can do little about. The manufacturers do not seem to have a problem with the financial deal on offer from the Formula One group. The problem appears to be that they do not like the way the sport is run.

Mosley says that the men who make decisions in the car companies about F1 programmes are not high-level executives, but the fact remains that despite many management changes in the last few years (a point Mosley often mentions), the manufacturers are still there and they still seem to be solid. Mosley's remarks and tactics are often seen by F1 people as pushing the manufacturers together rather than tearing them apart. Indeed one could argue that the manufacturers are, in fact, ahead of Mosley in the game because they did foresee attempts to split them up and so signed a legally-binding agreement in September last year to make sure that they did stay together.

The other problem is that Mosley has to find five teams which would realistically believe that they could take on Ferrari. There are plenty of teams with ambition but few have the money to do GP2 without pay-drivers. In addition several of the teams already signed up to the extended Concorde Agreement are nonetheless dependent on the manufacturers. In order to compete with Ferrari in the FIA series, a team would need to have a manufacturer engine. Williams and Red Bull Racing, for example, know that.

Mosley can picks his teams for 2008 and then discover with a month to go before the start of the 2008 World Championship that all the newcomers have been bought out and the manufacturers are back with the same resources they have today. Alternatively, the manufacturers could buy the teams and shut them down, which would ruin Mosley's series.

The key point that Mosley did not focus on is that while getting the number of teams needed is not really the issue, the more important point is whether the series can attract an audience.

The danger of Mosley's plan is that it may also stir up questions about whether or not the FIA is acting correctly in terms of sports governance. The FIA is recognised by the European Union as having the power to run the sport as it sees fit but the basis of that power is the Nice Treaty and this states that federations must act with "due regard for national and community legislation and on the basis of a democratic and transparent method of operation". One can imagine expensive lawyers making a case against the FIA not least because of another clause in the Nice Treaty which reads that sports federations should "provide the possibility of access to sports for the public at large, human and financial support for amateur sports, promotion of equal access to every level of sporting activity for men and women alike, youth training, health protection and measures to combat doping, acts of violence and racist and xenophobic occurrences".

The key point here is that "these social functions entail special responsibilities for federations and provide the basis for the recognition of their competence in organising competitions".

Mosley says that he has "a real determination to see this through" and says that he honestly believes that if F1 is to prosper costs must come down. That is all well and good, but the manufacturers also have real determination to see that the sport is run in a way that they consider to be acceptable.

The advantage they have is that car companies go on and on, FIA presidents ultimately get old and get replaced and as the FIA electorate discovered last autumn, there is not another Mosley out there.

minardirule

The man has clearly taken leave of his senses giving the manufacturers the great deal of getting no money and only giving them 10 days in which to be entitled to no money. There had best be some full and frank private discussions going on because what he is saying in public is insane.

I had high hopes for Max when the FIA got rid of JM Balestre who had been in the job far too long and was clearly just an insane old French man. Now Mosley only seems to have one advantage left........

viges

His folks ended up in France after the unfortunate matter of the black shirts. So misunderstood ...

Petroltorque

Yes, I suspect Max sems himself as some Dictator. But even in Roman times dictats still had to be passed by the senate. What F1 needs more than ever is Consensus. The Manufacturers will not sign up to those ridiculous regulations he has for 2008 onwards.

forzaminardi

His folks ended up in France after the unfortunate matter of the black shirts. So misunderstood ...

I thought he was born in Ireland?

Ger

I thought he was born in Ireland?

?????????????????????????????????

Lease

All fits together, doesn't it?

The Mugabe of motorised rounders learned his trade from genetically implanted facism, and being Irish, he's too stupid to know any better.

PistonBroke

Take Max duck hunting..........then give the job to Paul!

forzaminardi

no sorry, he was born in london in1940, he just spent his childhood in Ireland

vuurmuur

Take Max duck hunting

Duck hunting with Cheney in this case....;)

[Edited on 15/2/2006 by vuurmuur]

Petroltorque

Give the job to Stoddart? You're joking right? Who among the team owners would take him seriously?
The real problem is that the FIA is being run as a vehicle for Bernie Ecclestone's business interests. Moseley's fiddling with his balls while cicuits like Hockenheim and Spa are being strangled by the costs of a grand prix. And they're not the only one's under the cosh.
F1 needs rule stability, that way there's the rule of diminishing returns for your investment.

viges

Hockenheim, ironically, has been undone by its desire to please Bernie (ie changing the track to suit TV). I'm glad Silverstone stands up to him.

Ger

All fits together, doesn't it?

The Mugabe of motorised rounders learned his trade from genetically implanted facism, and being Irish, he's too stupid to know any better.

Ass Hole!

OleBenny

The manufacturer can really screw F1 if they stand united. Without engines, F1 will lose big time. But of course with standard tires and standard engines, Mosleys plan to move teams up/down from GP2 might work. But it will no longer be the pinnacle of motorsports, and I suspect fans would rather watch Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Renault and BMW battle it out in a rival series.

Right now everyone is tryinge to bluff the other side. If they don't come to their senses a spilt is going to happen.

Lease

Ass Hole!

Oh gosh, I have inadvertantly offended someone!

Would a balancing Polish joke help?

A potatoe casserole by way of apology?

Perhaps if I pretended to understand the diffeence between Northern Ireland and the Republic?

A promise never to tell the joke about the two Irish lads who really liked each other's company - Michael Fitzpatrick & Patrick Fitzmichael? (cousins to the well known Scottish couple - Ben Doon & Phil McCavity)?

What can I dooooooooooooooooooo?????????!!!!!!!!!!

Murph

I sorta remember being at Mosprt Park and Watkins Glen in the early and mid 70's watching 2 Ferrari powered cars and a whole heck of a lot of Cosworth powered cars ( Lotus, McLaren, Tyrrell, Brabham, Surtees, UOP Shadows, Penske, Marches, Politoy's-Williams) as well as a couple of BRM V12's and the unforgetable sounding Matra V-12 of Chris Amon. Pretty decent racing as well.....

I can see Honda and Toyota selling engines..... maybe even BMW as well....... but I don't see the 5 manufacturers running there own series for any length of time, if at all. Not saying that Mad Max is on the right track..... but during the Cosworth garagestis period a lot of new teams came into f1, and that is something many fans would like to see again..... as for this fan, I am especially looking forward to a new team named Minardi and run by GCM and his son showing up in the future........

max_torq

So Mosely is now quite openly turning F1 into its own relegation zone. F1 with a budget cap, spec cosworth, engines, a control tyre, aerodynamics created for spectacle and racing on all the tilke tracks. It will kill A1. And may well provide a stepping stone for aspiring GP2 teams. But the factories with their windtunnels and engine programs will race in the GPMA premier league on the old european tracks that F1 has already brought to the edge of bankruptcy. Ferrari would hang about in the second division for about one year.

Minardus

Why would it kill A1???
A1 is during F1'a offseason and I firmly believe both series can live next to eachother.

Btw, what if a GP2 team wins and moves up to F1?
They will have to hire a lot more people to do the work.
What if they don't perform well and get relegated to GP2?
They will have to fire the extra people they hired before!!

Ger

Oh Lease by the way - I was being unfair to ass holes everywhere by compairing you to one of them. To all ass holes who were offended by me calling Lease one of you I apologise.

MCSF

Ger - its cool, the irish sailed all over the earth many moons ago sans motors or high tech kit. Lease here can't make a boat with a putt putt engine work right .....

viges

Quite right, we shipped a fair few of them to a place we called Australia.

Lease

Ah...but the Yanks stole them back!

http://www.irishaustralia.com/Australian/Patriots/catalpa.htm

30 - Love

Rekart

Think we could set up a Mosley-Cheney hunting trip? With shotguns this time?