Highlights
Series
Explore
The most extraordinary thing about Sunday's 'peace agreement', which was announced as the cars were warming up for the Spanish Grand Prix, is that nowhere does it guarantee peace, and, in fact, could still result in the very opposite, possibly with just four motor manufacturer-backed teams and not five.
The Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association's press release announced the signing by all five members of a Memorandum of Understanding on the commercial structure of Formula One. However, at no stage has there been an announcement that Bernie Ecclestone or his majority shareholder CVC Capital Partners have also accepted this MoU.
|
Bernie Ecclestone, Dr Gerhard Gribkowsky (majority shareholder of SLEC holdings), Flavio Briatore © XPB/LAT |
What was signed by the five members - representing BMW-Sauber, Honda Racing F1 Team, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault F1 and Toyota Racing - was a document signifying their acceptance of the heads of agreement and some of the many fine points relating to the sport's commercial aspects between 2008 and 2012.
No more, and no less, and, in the absence of a statement from either/or both Formula One Management and CVC - and, for that matter, the FIA, who widely trumpeted the signing of an extended version of the Concorde Agreement in January 2004 - it must be assumed that no such signature has been applied to the MoU.
