Breakaway threat undampened

Plans to start up a breakaway championship were announced earlier this year by F1's car makers in an effort to gain more influence over how Formula 1 is run. The breakaway series would not start up until the current Concorde Agreement, the document which governs Formula 1, expires in 2008.

The situation appears not to have been diffused by last week's meeting in Germany and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemelo said last week that the teams are concerned about what will happen if current F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone retires.

"Bernie has done an excellent job, but all of us are getting older," he said. "When he was in charge, we all agreed to leave the situation as it was, but when he decided to sell his own business there were problems."

Ecclestone sold a majority stake of his SLEC holding company, which holds the broadcasting and promotional rights to Formula1, to the Kirch Group. The German media company is involved in pay-per-view television and the manufacturers are concerned about Kirch's future plans for F1.

The teams are known to want not only more influence in the running of the sport, but also a bigger share of the profits generated by selling television rights around the world.

"Today, the cake is divided with a huge percentage for the owner and a small percentage for the players," continued di Montezemelo. "In the future this should be completely different. It's not such a big job to organise a championship. I organised a big event for soccer [the 1990 World Cup]."