The Weekly Grapevine

Bernie's offer

Rather than 'who's got the quickest V8' or 'who'll best adapt to yet another F1's Qualifying procedure', the primary question preoccupying minds in Sakhir's heavily air conditioned team suites will no doubt be: Is peace about to break out in F1, now that Bernie Ecclestone has reportedly offered teams and manufacturers two seats on the board of Formula One Administration?

FOA falls, of course, under SLEC - the investment vehicle presently owned 25% by Ecclestone's Bambino family trust, with the balance held by three banks - so is hardly the major decision-taking forum in the sport. Put rather crassly, the offer appears akin to a supermarket chain offering representation on the board of its convenience store division (note: not main board) to a group of primary suppliers in order to appease the companies over past dealings.

Would two (maximum seats) provide sufficient voting power within, crucially, SLEC? Hardly. Would said 'suppliers' have reason to feel slightly insulted due to the relatively lowly status of the seat? Possibly. Would the 'suppliers', all of whom are, by nature, exceedingly competitive, find it difficult to 'elect' objective representation to serve the interests of all parties in the group? Totally. Finally, could those 'suppliers' excluded from the offer on the basis of satisfaction with the supermarket's modus operandi feel aggrieved by their exclusion? Absolutely.

So, will the 'suppliers' - F1's teams/manufacturers (which brings further questions) - take up the offer? On the basis of present information, unlikely.

Why, after all, should they? There are presently two factions: those with Bernie (for which read Concorde post-2007) and those against. As is well documented, six teams -Ferrari, Red Bull, Midland, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Williams and Super Aguri - have signed up to Ecclestone's vision of F1 after the prevailing Concorde Agreement expires. Their signatures are in Bernie's bag, so just why would F1's controller, who has an aversion to parting with exhaled air, offer them a collective seat on the board of FOA, which, after all, acts as F1's cash register, when the snaring was completed last year?

That, then, implies that the target is the rebels, better known as Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association and representing the Formula One interests of BMW, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Renault and Toyota. Their signatures are, remember, very much not in the bag and have eluded Ecclestone for over four years now, despite enormous pressure from the F1 supremo, and, tellingly, FIA president Max Mosley, who has tried every trick in the book to push them in SLEC's direction.

Saliently, Ecclestone's reported offer appears to disenfranchise Ferrari and the five 'independents' who signed up in good faith, and it would be a touch naive to believe that Luca di Montezemolo, who believes that Ferrari is F1, would not insist that his company receive an FOA seat merely for being Ferrari, certainly if he should sniff out that, say, a Ron Dennis or Nick Fry sits besides Bernie in board meetings from which Maranello is excluded...

Bernie Ecclestone, master of all he surveys © XPB/LAT

Ditto Sir Frank Williams, who, being a racer through and through, could, quite conceivably, find it difficult to stomach that a Flavio Briatore has greater input into the sport than the only surviving founder team principal. And, would Dietrich Mateschitz, owner of not one, but two, teams, consider it fair that Red Bull's wings are clipped by lack of direct FOA representation?

Under the circumstances, would Ecclestone be wise to offer GPMA members two seats while excluding his loyal allies from the board, particularly when these consist of di Montezemolo, Williams and Mateschitz or the rather reclusive Austrian's proxy? Such a strategy borders so closely on the downright dangerous that it becomes fundamentally unthinkable...

Assuming, then, that Ecclestone has earmarked a seat for his five loyalists representing six teams, it follows that GPMA, made up of five rather powerful motor manufacturers headed by some exceedingly able people, will receive a single board slot, on a SLEC subsidiary, to represent their collective interests - which, according to the latest F1 Racing magazine, ran to a couple of billion dollars (at least) in the year just past. Link this, now, to the question above, which pondered whether they could feel a touch insulted by the offer allegedly made.

Consider their present situation: seemingly committed to a breakaway single-seater series providing their non-negotiable touchstones, to wit the staging of a transparently-governed, cutting-edge sporting spectacle appealing to a wide fan base through its affordability, they formed GPMA in which the quintet all have equal board representation. Just why should they swap that for a minority voice on the board of an SLEC subsidiary?

IF Ecclestone intends offering, or has offered, his loyalists - made up of garagistes, accepting, of course, that Ferrari extremely conveniently self-inflicted such term upon itself - a group seat, what chance of GPMA sanguinely accepting equal status on FOA with a group they view to be a financial minority in their larger scheme of things?

Then, GPMA has long had 'issues' with Mosley's style and his vision for a 'dumbed-down' post-2008 sport, and it is rather difficult to imagine how a single (or even two) FOA seat will alter their perception of the man, who, after all by virtue of European Commission decree, may not involve himself in Formula One's commercial matters.

Mosley's recent pressures - threats of exclusion from the decision-making process unless they enter the 2008-2012 championship by latest 31 March; standardized components; and reduced or zero revenues paid to manufacturer-backed outfits - have hardly endeared him to GPMA (and, by extension, Ecclestone), and it is difficult to envision how Ecclestone's reported offer will alter what GPMA views as a major stumbling block.

Finally, with the EU having postponed its decision on the take-over of SLEC (incorporating FOA and Formula One Management) by CVC Partners - the venture capital company which has applied to purchase SLEC, then restructure it - by two weeks until March 21 to allegedly investigate competition concerns, further questions surround what could, even if only cynically, be viewed as rather convenient timing for Ecclestone's offer.

Has the Commission raised questions regarding SLEC's and FOA's make-ups, leading Ecclestone to react generously? If so, will GPMA play ball and accept his offer? Why, given their seeming refusal to deviate from their chosen path, would they suddenly bend when offered one or two seats on a board to which Ecclestone and CVC could most likely appoint sufficient additional members to totally swamp their votes? Remember, a British high court found that Ecclestone attempted to do just that to the trio of banks at SLEC...

All in all, it seems this one will run way beyond Bahrain, and that the main questions in Bahrain will surround Formula One's sporting aspects and not the political and commercial. Which is, after all, what F1 should always be about.

Circuit marketing

Jenson Button at an autograph signing during Bahrain testing © Bahrain International Circuit

You have to hand it to the Bahrain's race promoters: the island state may have the highest Grand Prix weekend hotel prices - which, frankly, are an absolute rip-off and do the country's image no good at all - and the circuit appears somewhat brown and bleak, but Bahrain International Circuit's management has truly excelled itself on the media and information front. In fact, so regular has been the flow of information, and so unique have been some of the activities, that the other 17 circuits could do well to take a leaf out of BIC's promotional book.

True, the French Federation sends out regular stuff - and their race is four months away, so the flow will no doubt increase - while Silverstone pops the odd release into the system, with Indianapolis, too, dispatching advisories, but generally F1's circuits are hardly known for their communication skills. No mails have ever, for example, been received from Germany's circuits, or Italy's brace of tracks - yet these, more than most, are at present under commercial and/or operational siege.

Malaysia's race takes place in little over a week, yet not a word on Sepang's programme has been announced, while information from Australia, normally a good provider of snippets, has been equally sparse. And that event begins at the end of this month.

It is not merely the flow of information from Bahrain which has impressed, but the width and breadth of promotional activities undertaken to promote an event not exactly known for its sell-out crowds due to, among other factors, its location, the fact a Sunday is the European equivalent of a Monday and the lack of an inbred motorsport culture.

Since Ferrari, Honda and Scuderia Toro Rosso went testing at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit three weeks ago, not a business day has passed without more than a couple of press releases advising of activities and programmes. Initially the circuit issued reports and visuals of the tests - exceedingly useful for media outlets without dedicated personnel at the venue - which provided good overviews without reverting to PR-speak as do, by necessity, team releases.

Autograph sessions to coincide with the tests were organized in Manama, as was a motor racing art exhibition held as part of the "Yalla! Bahrain" programme, which, to quote the promoters, is a "programme of sporting, cultural and community events being staged throughout the month-long lead-up period to the 2006 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix.

"Most of the activities will take place away from the Bahrain International Circuit, bringing the excitement of Formula One to the people of Bahrain and the many international visitors to the country."

With circuit after circuit feeling the effect of Bernie Ecclestone's race fees escalation clauses, said to be ten percent year-on-year, with some venues tied in for up to seven years, surely the time has come for these to market themselves for the overall good of the sport, and, crucially, their own events? And, ironically, it is the one event that least needs the activities - funded as it is by Bahrain's royal family - that has taken the lead. A tip of the baseball cap to you, BIC.