F1 on the brink of civil war

The GPWC cited the failure of the SLEC shareholders' (Ecclestone, and the three F1 banks) to comply with key points in a memorandum of understanding thrashed out at the end of last year. One of these points was seats on the board of any restructured administrative body.

GPWC Chairman Juergen Hubbert said: "When we realised that our commitment to implement the memorandum was not met by the other parties, we had to make a decision in the best interests of the sport and end negotiations."

Bernie Ecclestone told Autosport.com exclusively: "We were giving about $700 million more to the teams to 2007 than they would normally be paid under the current Concorde agreement. They were going to commit to 2014 but then when we got down to signing an agreement they couldn't commit to one year.

"The manufacturers just said they couldn't commit. So we said, if you can't commit, then why are you wasting our time? All we want is the Concorde Agreement extended."

Asked whether the breakdown in negotiations meant that the five GPWC manufacturers would now band together in an attempt to organise their own championship, a threat from the outset, Ecclestone said: "I've no idea. Probably. Maybe.

"They wanted to give it to the FIA basically and be the regulators," he continued, "which could never happen. We have a 100-year agreement with the FIA and they are the regulators. If they want to try and organise their own championship, they can."

One of the initial stated aims of the GPWC was to have an involvement in any new F1 constitution "in the best interests of the sport," as well as to protect their own investment. A negotiated solution was seen as being in the best sport's interest in order to create a stable and transparent basis for future commercial investment.

Ecclestone, however, said: "What the GPWC wanted was all that money and all these things, seats on the board and everything, but they didn't want to give any commitments to the banks. They didn't want to give any commitments at all. You give us everything, you put us on the board and so on, all the lovely things they wanted... And we said, well, what are you going to give us, and in the end and the answer was nothing. It's what you might expect of big companies..."