The Weekly Grapevine

A1 GP ups the ante

Following recent confirmation that A1 Grand Prix, the self-styled 'World Cup of Motorsport', is, in company with technical partners Lola (chassis), Zytek (engines/electronics) and Cooper (tyres), investigating an engine output increase of +-40% is sure to lead to a power struggle - in every sense of the words - in the very near future.

Setting aside questions of whether the series' present all-aluminum, 3,400cc Zytek V8 units actually produce the stated 550 horse power (impressive numbers are, after all, easy to invent, particularly when engines are sealed against 'outside' tampering) and can be boosted to an intended 750bhp, the mere fact that A1 is talking the sort of outputs Formula One will be hard-pressed to maintain come 2008 will not have best pleased certain folk in Paris and London.

By the same token, telephone lines in Billancourt, Brackley, Cologne, Maranello, Munich and Stuttgart must surely have buzzed incessantly when A1 Deputy Chairman Tony Teixeira, now seemingly the de facto boss after recently suggesting a sort of sabbatical for series founder Sheik Maktoum, made the announcement during the recent test week.

Should the power increase come to fruition - and, whilst A1 failed to achieve all its pre-launch objectives (not least in revenue-generation and TV numbers), it did get an international show off the ground and around the world - certain questions are sure to be asked, not least by fans, about the light green alley F1 is headed down by way of 40% power cuts at precisely the time an upstart, privately-funded series announces increases of precisely the same figure.

Zytek V8 © XPB/LAT

And, seemingly, does so without the millions of billions of dollars FIA President Max Mosley is so intent on saving the manufacturers. Consider: off-the-shelf chassis, 750 bhp, one-make tyres and (relatively) low-rent aerodynamics, all to be introduced in 2008. Could, of course, be an excerpt from F1's new-look regulations...

Factor in the great unwashed's alpha-numeric logic in which 'A' naturally comes six letters before 'F' and 'One' is 'One', and the potential for conflict is multiplied. Finally, ask Mosley's (in)famous 'Man Down the Pub' to define the difference between 'World Championship' and 'World Cup', and note the glazed, faraway look as he mentally wrestles with the words.

At Brands Hatch a year ago, during A1's inaugural race, Teixeira allowed that a three-year team franchise, for a single car plus spare, ran out at approximately US$5m. Add in the same, on a worst-case scenario basis, for total running costs, and the budget for three years pans out at less than $4m per season.

Even trebling that to take into account the additional costs of A1's 2008 formula (and 'mass production will substantially contain costs), and adding another 50% to cater for a notional two-car team brings the total annual budget for an operation equal (on paper, at least) to Mosley's much-heralded 2008-style F1 is little more than $20m.

Even spreading, for the sake of argument, A1's 2005/6 season losses of $212m - which included all start-up costs - equally across the 20-odd teams who ran all the races ups the overall figure to just $30m for a season. And, we repeat, all calculation are on a worst-case scenario basis.

The burning question is, of course, whether A1 will achieve its objectives, but the present perceptions are that the series could do so, and perceptions are very real until disproved. And, the disproving could take up to three years.

Therein lies the problem for F1's administrators, team principals, motor manufacturers, sponsors, tyre supplier, and, above all, F1's new owners CVC Partners: the new formula, said Mosley, should cost no more than $100m per annum, or about a fifth of present front-running budgets. A1's 'vision' for the future will cost about a third of projected budgets - for a 'World Cup' using equal or similar technology.

Much has been made of the dangerous speeds achieved by F1's latest cars, and most power- or speed-sapping reductions have been introduced on the grounds of safety - with motor manufacturers falling in line to prevent being thought of as 'dangerous' or irresponsible.

In A1's case, that line of thought simply does not apply, and, if anything, placing one's destiny in a piece of potentially dangerous kit in honour of one's country can have a ring, no matter how warped, to it.

Worse (for the FIA), the sport's governing body holds no real sway over A1 GP save for demanding that competing cars meet (universal) safety requirements, that entrants and drivers qualify for the necessary international licenses (without the need for 'super' licenses, and facility inspections as per new-look F1), that all sporting regulations are applied, and that host countries have followed the necessary procedures for race inscriptions and circuit inspections.

That, basically, is it - no Concorde, no Memorandum of Understandings, no complex Commercial Agreements, no Technical Working Groups; just a couple of standardized franchise agreements, a relatively simple calendar consisting of little more other than a collection of individual dates applied for by national sporting authorities hosting each events, and a set of one-chassis, one-engine, one-tyre regulations which can be amended by simple majority rule - without engine partners and suppliers getting all uppity in the process.

A1GP Chief Tony Teixeira © XPB/LAT

Imagine, then, the thoughts of CVC's Donald McKenzie.

Less than a year ago his capital venture fund committed to a multi-billion dollar deal for the commercial rights to a world championship (and dumped its highly successful MotoGP operation to do so), only to discover that some nascent series devised by an Arab and a Portuguese South African will, within two years, offer an annual championship with equal technology for half price, including 25 teams and all their cars and kit - and without a single pesky motor manufacturer in sight.

If some strongly worded calls have not yet been made to Formula One Management's offices in Prince's Gate, they surely soon will be...

Imagine the effect on F1's life-blood - all-important TV numbers - should an opposition series, offering effectively the same spectacle but at a quarter the going price, start up. Imagine the subsequent exodus of sponsors, of spectators, of circuit owners who can stage an event at affordable cost and sell hundreds of thousands of tickets at reasonable pricing levels without their proceeds going to some or other family trust or to repay massive loans.

Already A1 is bragging about 100,000 advance ticket sales for its 2006/7 opening race, at former F1 facility Zandvoort - and that is for its present 500 bhp cars.

F1 is F1 and will always be F1, will probably be the sport's rather insular reasoning. But, will it really?

Already the sport has announced plans to go green come 2009 - rather saliently, a year after A1 hopes to match it horsepower for horsepower. F1's hoped-for regenerative energy devices - none of which actually exist despite the targeted introduction date being a little over two seasons away - may produce another 60 or so bhp, for 10 or 12 seconds. Then they may, after a season or three, produce 120 bhp, for maybe 15 or 20 seconds.

Without A1's ambitions that may have sufficed to retain an enthusiastic world-wide following, but given the hard-core nature of motorsport fans, most of whom think 'green' is Britain's national sporting colour and see 'red' only when a mass of Italian are about, where would their real preferences lie?

With low-rent cars on one-make tyres powered by unproven hybrid power units offering Mickey Mouse power boosts similar to those presently used by A1, even if of a different configuration and generation; or low-rent cars on one-make tyres fitted with screaming V8s of the type traditionally fitted to F1 projectiles since the sixties, with ticket prices pegged at a quarter of F1's rate?

Formula One may retain the lure of the best drivers around, but that is by no means a given: bearing in mind the 'frozen' nature of F1's future technology, why would any world-class driver hang about in 'inferior' machinery when the same amounts of power, albeit generated in more traditional fashion, are available down the road?

True, he may not earn as large a retainer - but, as A1 grows (if it does), so will its income, and by implication, the prize money structure - and winning two or three A1 races with 750 real, continuous horsepower has got to beat consistent, hybrid-powered tenth places, particularly when no way exists of improving the car for two or three years.

Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley © XPB/LAT

So, where does F1 go to counter what could be a very real threat?

One thing the FIA - the real owners of the Formula One World Championship, regardless of what CVC may believe - cannot do is ban A1 in its present or future formats.

Not only does its deal with the European Union demand that it administer all motor sport in a democratic, non-monopolistic fashion, but also that the body encourages the development and growth of motor sport world-wide, and at all levels. Banning a new series hardly meets those objectives, as Mosley readily conceded when asked whether the FIA could/would ban the GPWC's promised breakaway series.

So, regardless of the FIA's sentiments towards A1, it must be seen to favour its activities, provided, of course, that all safety and administrative requirements are met. Failure by the governing body to do so could result in some long and unpleasant meetings in Brussels, for A1 operates, like F1, out of London. Making a complaint is thus simply a matter of lifting a phone, and the EU is said to be expecting a call at some stage.

The sport could continue arrogantly in time-honoured fashion with its head-in-the-sand attitude, and believe A1's up-market plans to be little more than wishful and rather expensive thinking (a la GPWC), and ignore the threat until it is too late - either way - to react. What, though, if A1 really does get its act together in time, and really does deliver a 750 bhp series in 2008? Worse, what happens in 2009, when A1 is seen to be international motorsport's only rip-roaring formula as F1 goes green?

Bernie Ecclestone is believed to hold contracts with all F1 circuits which prevent them from promoting international single-seater races without FOM's express approval, but, again, A1 has successfully circumvented this obstacle by contracting alternate venues, including some spectacular street circuits.

Even GP2's suggestion of running a winter series will hardly put a spoke in the wheels of new-look A1: after all, the 2008 cars could have 750 bhp versus GP2's 500, and, in any event, A1 could run on alternate weekends, just as rallying alternates with F1 during the high season. True, some GP2 operations presently supplement their incomes by running A1 teams, but, if push came to shove, they would follow the money.

The GPWC promise to form a breakaway series was, as proven, a hollow threat designed to force up F1's commercial ante; A1's upward mobility, too, may yet come to nothing. But don't bet on it.

A1 is an up and running series, the GPWC threat was issued for commercial reasons; A1 has present deals in place with teams and suppliers, GPWC had none of the above apart from a few loose engines and lofty ideals; A1 has TV deals in place (even if the audience seldom reached 10m per race), GPWC did not even own a camera; A1 was started by folk with no motorsport knowledge for reasons other than the love of the sport, GPWC was formed by insiders intent on better commercial deals for their companies.

Teixeira has downplayed suggestions that A1 is going head-to-head with F1. "We are the World Cup of Motorsport,' he said late last week. "Formula One is Formula One. We obviously will always say that we are complimentary to that and they are complimentary to us. We don't want to be quicker than F1 or anything else."

But, he would say that, wouldn't he, particularly given that his planned formula virtually matches F1 rules scheduled for almost simultaneous introduction.

Given the circumstances, the best way to fight A1's fire is with fire power, and it is not yet too late for F1 to drop its politically-correct regulations and revert to what it has always been: consistently the world's fastest form of motor sport, achieved by embracing cutting-edge technologies. The teams exist, the machinery exists, the mechanisms exist, and, above all, the will to do so exists amongst the vast majority of folk in the paddock.

The required fire power is vested in the FIA, and nowhere else. A1's 2008 regulations do not (yet) exist, and, should amended F1 regulations be forced through by the FIA as rapidly as it changed the old ones, then a case could be made (in Brussels?) by the FIA that A1 is doing no more than copy F1.

Should, though, Formula One continue down its green garden path whilst permitting A1 to ambush its, F1's, traditional standing at the top of the performance pile, then yet another single-seater split could be on the cards sooner rather than later, and, crucially, driven by an existing series rather than threats. Strange how, as one challenge to F1's standing is suppressed, so another creeps over the horizon.

This threat, though, should be taken rather more seriously and not merely spoken away, for it is driven by naked ambition, and not commercial and political maneuvering. That makes it doubly dangerous.