Assessing the likelihood of a News Corp F1 takeover

It is a truism that nothing in Formula 1 remains constant - be it the technical or sporting regulations, the structure of the calendar, financial arrangements, or any other aspect of this most complex and expensive of sports. And so it is with the Concorde Agreement, the tripartite covenant which provides F1's governing framework.

Back in the early eighties when first the Concorde Agreement was adopted as a means of broking peace, the F1 paddock was filled with tobacco executives. Sponsorship and its activation were still in infancy. The only mainstream car maker in the sport was Renault, with Cosworth supplying 80 percent of the grid and the garagistes holding sway. Ferrari was about to go into a competitive downhill slide that would last 21 years. The number of TV broadcasters could be counted on the fingers of a mittened hand, and then only selected races were televised, and grandstand tickets cost a fiver in any currency.