F1 Resolution close?

Fears about a Formula 1 breakaway championship should be finally laid to rest in the next few days, with teams and the sport's chiefs poised for a series of key meetings to secure grand prix racing's future.

Although there had been fears that a walk out by teams of a FIA Technical Working Group meeting in Germany earlier this week would reignite plans for a rival series, behind the scenes moves mean the ongoing political crisis is now actually heading to a resolution.

The first major step to finding the solution is a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, where F1 teams are planning to sign a legally binding agreement that will control costs over the next few years. Putting that in place is vital for bringing the FIA on board.

Further talks are then scheduled, which will perhaps run on into the week prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix, to get a Concorde Agreement signed between the teams and F1's commercial rights holders CVC.

Once these two agreements are in place, then the documents are set to be presented to the FIA for them to sign. It is understood the governing body will be told to sign the documents or CVC and the teams will begin working together on their own championship.

Ross Brawn said he was optimistic about the situation going forward, feeling that Wednesday's setback in discussions between the FIA and the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) was merely a 'blip.'

"It was disappointing," he explained. "Nobody enjoys those things and in the technical area a lot of the teams have had a very good relationship with the FIA over the years and it's very disappointing when those things happen. It was just an untenable situation. If we get all the other matters sorted out then we can get the technical side back on a sensible footing.

"We are seeking a solution with the commercial rights holder and the FIA to get everybody happy and comfortable with going forward. I don't want to say too much. There is a lot of work going on and it is being done in the right spirit. Wednesday last week was very disappointing but I hope it was just a blip in the process rather than a chasm."

When asked if in the wake of the financial document getting signed off on Wednesday he was confident the FIA would join the Concorde Agreement, Brawn said: "I really hope so. We need to sort this out. All the teams are suffering. This is not a helpful environment for sorting out our commercial situation.

"You cannot tell partners or investors what the future holds, and we want to be able to do that. We want to have confidence in explaining what F1 is going to be about in the next five years, so we really do need to get that all sorted. It is a terrible distraction in what's a fantastic season. It's a great shame."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that he hoped the teams could settle all outstanding issues with the FIA and CVC.

"A FOTA series is clearly an option, and we need to know quickly what we are doing," he said. "The later we leave it, the more difficult it is. So, I don't think that will be based upon individuals and egos that are in F1, it will be based upon - do we have an acceptable contract? Do we have an entry at the moment? I am a little bit confused about that I suppose.

"FOTA is not here to campaign against any individual, it is here to try and improve the sport. And we all know that we can improve the sport, and that is not to criticise any one individual or any one organisation.

"We the teams can do a better job, we can work together, and we can work with the governing body, we can work with the commercial rights holder, so we have got to make it better.

"It may be part of the problem in the situation that all of the parties feel that they can go their own way. If you follow that, you don't always get to a consensus quickly enough."

Although there had been initial hopes that the Concorde Agreement would be signed off this week, it is more likely that the matter will stretch on a little bit.

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen said: "Let us rather say within the next two weeks if everything runs according to plan, then it is certainly possible."

The discussions between the teams and CVC has also prompted fresh question marks about the future role of Bernie Ecclestone.

A report in The Sunday Telegraph suggested that senior figures from CVC met earlier this week to discuss the possibility of moving Ecclestone aside into an honorary role, having already decided to take the initiative in dealing with the teams.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76905

 

Depends who you read this week apparently?

The fall-out from Bernie Ecclestone's controversial interview that seemingly praised Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein as model leaders could be further-reaching than anybody had imagined, it has been mused – as F1's commercial rights-holder perhaps prepares to join the FOTA breakaway teams in taking flight.

A meeting was reportedly held last week by Ecclestone's employer CVC Capital Partners – where he is chief executive – to discuss the remarks made, with one of the subjects for consideration being whether the European private equity firm has reached the end of the road with the British billionaire and would now be better off without him, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Leading CVC members Sir Martin Sorrell and Peter Brabeck are both Jewish, and little appreciated Ecclestone's misguided comments – and it is suggested that current Renault F1 managing director and Formula One Teams' Association commercial vice-chairman Flavio Briatore is the preferred choice to succeed his fellow QPR director. FIA President Max Mosley – another man apparently little to CVC's taste – recently claimed that 'I think Flavio Briatore fancies himself as the Bernie'.

With or without CVC, though, it appears Ecclestone is increasingly siding himself with the eight FOTA rebels as F1's civil war rumbles on, and the Sunday Express revealed that through his company Epsilon Ltd, the Formula One Management (FOM) chief executive applied for trademark ownership of the terms 'Formula Grand Prix' and 'Formula GP' and lodged bids to protect 'GP1' and 'GP1 Series' logos on 19 June – the same day that FOTA officially announced its intention to launch a rival series.

Epsilon has also trademarked logos for a new junior formula called GP3 – meaning that should the teams indeed cut and run, there will be a ready-made ladder of promotion from GP3 up through the already established GP2 Series all the way to the heights of GP1. FOTA has dropped hints that should there still be cause for dispute with the FIA on Wednesday – when another reunion is due to take place to finalise cost-cutting details for 2010 and beyond and sign a new Concorde Agreement – then it really will have reached the point of no return.

Ecclestone, however, sought to play down the speculation, telling German magazine Auto Motor und Sport: “Next week we will have peace in Formula 1. We will all agree and there will only be one series.”

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/149721/1/ecclestone_to_join_f1_breakaway_if_cvc_ousts_him.html

 

What ever happens it sounds like Damon Hill has had enough of Bernie.
Many thought Bernie's softening on Silverstone would be welcomed by Hill but its apparently the opposite as:

Hill rejects race rotation for British GP and slams FIA!
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=38462