The Weekly Grapevine

The sound of silence from the GPMA

That the members of the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association have not, individually or collectively, reacted to FIA President Max Mosley's latest pressures is no surprise, for, in light of the pact agreed to by the signatories - BMW, Honda, Mercedes, Renault and Toyota - they may not legally commit to other than themselves until end-September this year.

Following a GPMA meeting convened in great secrecy last year by BMW Main Board Member Dr Burkhard Goschel at Bavaria's moated, eleventh century Schloss Hohenkammer, members are prohibited from entering into conflicting agreements, whether with Bernie Ecclestone's companies or the FIA directly, for a period of one year. The agreed penalty for any breach? Lasting dishonour and scorn of the type heaped upon Ferrari for breaking ranks, plus unlimited fiscal damages payable to the rest of the membership...

Thus, no matter what their individual inclinations may be, no matter what the repercussions of not submitting entries for the 2008 Formula One World Championship by Mosley's suggested D-Day ('a few weeks after' the World Motorsport Council Meeting scheduled for 23 March), no matter whether the main boards of these companies may wish to succumb to the latest commercial terms offered by Ecclestone, the simple fact remains that they legally cannot do so.

Unless, of course, they enter collectively and by unanimous agreement, and are thus seen to be fulfilling - on paper, at least - Mosley's wish. And, why exactly would they, a group of extremely hard-headed businessmen, remember, who will have beaten off stern and sustained internal challenges to arrive at their present professional stations, permit themselves to be seen to be acquiescing to enormous pressures from the sporting body, seen to be 'caving in' to Mosley, whom they seem to, by most accounts, loath rather viciously?

Before turning to a set of rather compelling reasons as to why the GPMA could consider such a move, let us first examine exactly what it is they would be entering. As things stand right now, it is nothing. That's right - nothing; in fact, the square root of nothing...

Given that the 2008 Concorde Agreement has yet to be fully defined, given that Formula One's regulations for the period as defined are some way from finality - are, in fact, still up for discussion until June, at least - a rather strong case can be made that post-2007 Formula One does not actually exist. Under those circumstances, how can entries be submitted for an undefined championship? How can teams be expected to enter for the unknown?

Thus, any team - whether one of the six already committed to Ecclestone's vision of the 'new' F1, or any or all of the rebel group's members - could, at best, register its intention of entering the 12-slot maximum championship, and mo more. Given that the FIA's stated objective, as consistently confirmed by Mosley over past years, is the removal of the security bond of (presently) $48m in time for the 'new' championship, it stands to reason that no penalty exists to be applied should a team withdraw its entry at any time before 1 January 2008 (or, as matters presently stand, first practice for the first event of the New Dawn).

The removal of the bond is not mere speculation: in a luncheon with British journalists on Monday, Mosley reiterated the entry requirements. "The regulations for entry are identical to the present day except that we have deleted the $48million bond. We would look at (a team's) factory, their business and be satisfied that they are capable of doing what we wanted," he said.

The present entry requirements include, of course, stipulation that the team be party to Concorde - to all intents and purposes a commercial agreement. Those requirements, though, were framed before the October 2001 tripartite agreement between the FIA, Ecclestone's companies and the European Union, in which the sporting body undertook to refrain from concerning itself with commercial matters. Can it thus legally stipulate that teams entering the championship need be signatories to the 'new' Concorde - particularly as the terms and conditions have not, as far as is understood, been framed?

Accordingly, unless all aspects of Concorde-to-be have been agreed by all parties before Mosley's D-Day - a tall order, given that the present document allegedly runs to 110 pages, and there exists little reason to believe that the revision will in any way be condensed - it is unlikely that any European judiciary would rule against a team entering the championship prior to putting pen to Ecclestone's undefined papers.

That being so, with eligibility being defined as satisfying the FIA that teams "are capable of doing what we wanted" on the basis of an elastic agreement, could any GPMA member have its entry for one of the 12 slots turned down? Hardly, and certainly not without squaring for rather heavy legal action which could drag on for years to come, particularly should one or other newcomer (or GP2 outfit) with decidedly inferior premises be granted entry ahead of GPMA teams with proven, state-of-the-art infrastructures purely on the basis of having signed Concorde.

What, then, would be the advantages to GPMA members of entering before D-Day, particularly in view of the risk of being perceived as having 'given-in' to the FIA? Apart from the rather obvious, namely that they will have secured entries and thus removed all associated risks of being beaten to list by whoever elects to join the formula, they will, of course, have closed the door on any more than one additional team, for grids are capped at twelve two-car teams, and six (confirmed teams) plus five (GPMA outfits) equals eleven.

Then, with the FIA stating that all entries are to be included in working groups and subsequent decision-making processes, GPMA members will have privileged access to (and input into) ll discussions, while the governing body remains in the relative dark as to GPMA agendas.

In the final analysis one hopes that both sides will see reason, even if only after glancing across the Atlantic to see the havoc wreaked by parties' inflexibly sticking to their guns in the name of 'sport'. Failing detente, though, all entries lodged by GPMA members before September or dissolution of the pact - which seems unlikely before its expiration date - must, by virtue of the foregoing, be viewed as having been submitted for reasons of convenience, to meet the timing and wording of the regulations, if not their spirit.

The battle between the factions is far from over, and this week's events prove that conclusively.

The real system of relegation and promotion

For news men in urgent need of attention-grabbing bytes, Max Mosley's suggestion that Formula One could be considering a promotion/relegation system along football's lines arrived like manna from heaven. Plus, 'the man down the pub' could argue about other matters than FIA/GPMA.

But, like his concept of rotating drivers between teams on an event-by-event basis, Mosley's idea should not be taken too seriously, for, operationally and commercially, it would seem to be a non-starter if for no reason other than it would appear to be in breach of the very spirit of the Concorde Agreement - which obliges signatories to commit to the full Formula One World Championship for the duration of the covenant.

Assume, though, that Concorde includes such a promotion/relegation clause, and consider the impact upon sponsors, who, in good faith agree to partner a team for, say, a five-year period, only to have the team relegated mid-way through on account of (temporary) engine maladies. Said sponsor would be quite within rights to sue the team, probably liquidating the outfit in the process. In one rapid move relegation equals liquidation; end of team, another one bites the dust - all of which cannot do the sport's image massive good.

Repeat the cycle often enough, and no teams remain to promote or relegate.

No, Mr Mosley, such a system may work well in football, where the primary sufferers through relegation are the culprits - players who can, in most instances, afford reduced wage packets for a season or two whilst they pull up their striped socks. In motor racing, the sufferers would be team personnel - who mostly have families to feed and mortgages to service. Does a premier league football team, after all, have 400 staff members per player? Or even 100 per footballer? Such numbers are, rightly or wrongly, not unknown in Formula One.

Yet, suddenly a secure team job converts to retrenchment on account of a crash-prone rookie driver, who fails to bring home the bacon. Sounds like a surefire way to ensure that the best in their disciplines give Formula One the widest of berths when it comes to employment contracts - and F1 should always attract the very best in all fields.

Given the advanced technologies required in F1 versus rather more basic 'off-the-shelf' race cars prescribed for GP2, downsizing a teams to the lower formula entails substantially more than sending them out to kick the same ball, but on a different pitch. Relegation in football does not mean closing wind tunnels or test tracks; whereas relegation in F1 will result in exactly that.

By the same token, promoting teams is not the work of a moment. Teams spend years, not mere months, on sponsor acquisition, and as close on 100 teams have proven in the sport's 55-year history, right of entry into Formula One is no guarantee of sponsorship. Ask Minardi, ask Jordan, ask Arrows, ask Prost, ask Simtek, ask Pacific, ask...

Formula One, in its reasonably recent past, had a perfectly workable system of promotion and relegation. It operated simply: there were up to 41 entries per Grand Prix, and if you pre-qualified and qualified, you raced; failure to pre-qualify meant homeward bound at 11:00am on Friday.

The strongest survived; the weakest sank. Of course, the same concerns applied as above - team personnel had mortgages and families to feed - but they knew what they were getting into, and many used these minnow teams to gain a foothold into the upper echelons of the sport.

In the late eighties/early nineties, Formula One boasted entry lists of up to 41 cars, of which the top 30 had a crack at qualifying and but 26 made it to the grid. That was the greatest leveler of all, with regular performers gradually making it through, and no-hopers sinking without trace. Some even chose to go down a level, and happy they seem there, too.

Formula One was a true meritocracy then and rewarded its participants accordingly without the need for complicated systems. When that system was overruled by the prevailing Concorde Agreement, grid numbers fell first to 12, then 11, then ten. Early last year there was a very real danger that teams would need to enter third cars to make up the numbers...

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- The Autosport.com Team

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