5th April- Honda would be part of a breakaway championship.

Formula One's guru Bernie Ecclestone is said to be close to losing his grip on the sport which he dragged from obscurity into the multi-million dollar empire that we know so well today.

Renault, BMW, Mercedes, Fiat (owners of Ferrari) and Ford (owners of Jaguar) are on the verge of breaking away from the current Formula One championship, after a long-running row over broadcasting rights in the sport. The problem stems from Bernie deal to sell a large part of his F1 business to the Kirch Group, a German pay-per-view television company, who would be likely to introduce pay-per-race viewing as soon as they can.
The major car manufacturers, together with all team sponsors, see F1 as a huge advertising opportunity and therefore want to ensure that the sport is watched by as wide a global audience as possible. They are not looking to maximise revenues from the sport itself, more to sell as many cars as possible.

Paolo Cantarella, president of Fiat and chairman of the carmakers' group, issued a statement on Wednesday insisting that the members of the European Car Manufacturers' Association, along with the Japanese manufacturers Honda and Toyota, were preparing to go it alone. "As a result of recent developments and in the best interest of motor sport, it has been unanimously agreed to set up a joint company, the purpose of which will be to establish, as soon as possible, a new single-seat, open-wheel racing car series," explained Cantarella.

"It’s quite simple really," said Cantarella. "The constructors are the protagonists in Formula 1, they provide the raw material for the sporting event and the spectacle. And so they would like to be able to run everything more directly, with greater overall guaranties."

Cantarella added that any eventual series would be based around four key points, with the emphasis on the TV-watching public, the major sticking-point in the carmakers’ negotiations with the Kirch Group.
"We want Formula 1, together with its entire heritage, to continue with order, technological development, clarity of rules and maximum visibility," he said. "As you can see, the guarantees also involve the general public."

He pointed out that Formula 1 would not be in the position it is today without the work done over many years by Bernie Ecclestone, and that any new series, would similarly take a considerable period to establish.
"Ecclestone has done a great job and everybody, including the constructors, has obtained benefits from this," he said. "I don’t want to go into details, but if automobile industries such as Fiat, Mercedes, Ford, Renault, BMW, Toyota and Honda intervene directly, then their action has more sense.
It’s going to take a long time, but we are starting to work now for our own Formula 1 series, one that will be increasingly avant-garde on both a sporting and technological level."

A major stumbling block to the setting up of the new championship was overcome when the sport's governing body, the FIA, appeared to back the new proposals by the car manufactories, citing only the safety aspect as a cause for concern.
The Federation International Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley said, “If the carmakers do go out on their own we would be happy to sanction their series as long as it was safe. It was part of the understanding with the EU that other series could run their own world championships so there is nothing to stop the carmakers if that is what they want.”
I imagine it could be done fairly quickly. But my understanding is that they are not likely to try to achieve anything until after the end of the present Concorde agreement."

The Concorde agreement concludes in over six years, at the end of 2007.

Click Here!


This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page
1