Analysis: Fighting for the Future of Formula One

Plenty of people want to protect and preserve the spirit of Formula One, but agreeing on where it is and what it looks like seems to be proving difficult.

The build up to the new season in Australia on March 9th has been dominated by rule changes, official statements and declarations of support and opposition to measures that either enhance or endanger Formula One's future according to one's viewpoint.

Melbourne will mark a welcome return to racing but the arguing will continue for many months to come after Williams and McLaren challenged the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) on Thursday.

Ostensibly the changes are all about cutting costs at a time of financial difficulty for some teams, improving the spectacle for the ordinary armchair fan after a season of Ferrari domination and getting Formula One back to basics.

But there is also a clash of wills going on between the major carmakers, who have threatened to set up their own championship, and the FIA. Like two countries that wage war against each other in the name of the same God, both sides have invoked the spirit of Formula One.

Ron Dennis and Frank Williams, the bosses of McLaren and Williams respectively, did so on Thursday in an open letter to FIA president Max Mosley informing him of their intention to go to arbitration.

"The changes you are proposing are against the spirit of Formula One, its restless drive for automotive excellence and its need to live on the technological cutting edge," they declared. "They seek to distance important stakeholders from the sport and could seriously diminish it as a spectacle."

Human Element

Others say the gizmos have got out of hand and Mosley last week played up the human element, speaking of Stirling Moss, of the late 'privateer' team owner Rob Walker and the irrepressible Eddie Jordan as also representing a spirit that the public wanted to see.

"Ron, (Ferrari's) Jean Todt and Frank Williams - all of them - would dearly love to finish first and second in every race and they will resist anything which stops them finishing first and second in every race," said Mosley.

"But it's not what I want and it's not what the public want and it's not what television wants. We're entitled to make rules which perhaps make life a little bit more difficult for them."

Mosley has argued before that independent teams are the future of the sport rather than carmakers who come and go.

Williams and Dennis, both of whose teams are linked to major manufacturers, accused Mosley of pushing a "structurally-flawed" business model and said his proposals for long-life engines risked alienating the carmakers.

"The proposals imply that the FIA is hostile to the manufacturers. This simply is not in the sport's best interests and needs to be addressed urgently," they said. "The manufacturers are committed enough to express a desire to take an equity stake in their commercial side of the sport. This indicates to us a welcome and significant change in their perception of Formula One.

"We cannot see that it makes sense to risk losing stable well-funded players and to attract or create less stable teams as replacements."

At the bottom of it all lies the Concorde Agreement, a secret accord between the teams, commercial rights holders and governing body that runs out in 2007 and governs the distribution of the sport's wealth.

"You have to understand the fundamentals behind this," said Dennis on Thursday. "We all have a very common passion for Formula One. We are not looking to damage Formula One, not looking to resist change. But only 23 percent of the entire revenues of Formula One are currently enjoyed by the teams.

"If there was a more balanced share of that money, then the smaller teams struggling in the current economic environment would be in much better shape."