It’s no secret that Formula One is going through a very messy, political, money-orientated peiod at the moment, just when it should be promoting itself to new fans as not being all about Ferrari and McLaren, with BrawnGP and Red Bull leading the charge.
There’s even a #maxout campaign on Twitter, trying to get Max Mosley to resign from office, or at least not stand again, come November!
Max wants to impose a budget cap on the teams for next season, in a bid to attract new teams to the sport, and make the current teams more sustainable. Originally, this also included more technical feedom fo the teams who accepted the budget cap, but apparently, this “Two Tier” F1 idea has been dropped.
The biggest problem is that F1 as a sport generates a HUGE amount of revenue… but only about 40% of that goes to the teams, and a miniscule amount to the FIA. The rest goes to CVC Capital Partners, who in turn pay Bernie Ecclestone to find more ways of generating even more revenue – leading to F1 races being held in empty stadiums in countries whose governments have the cash to spend and see F1 as a marketing tool to promote their countries and improve their global image. The teams have pointed out regularly that they help generate this money, but most of it goes to CVC to pay off their less profitable revenue streams and debts…
Give the teams a better share of the profits, and they could ALL focus more on developing their cars, and less on tying to find sponsors.
Here’s my theory, then. Max and Bernie WANT the teams to leave F1. They want them to go away and set up a new series that would be Formula One in all but name only. Bernie could help broker track deals with venues no longer tied into F1 deals, without CVC’s involvement, with FIA safety regulations, etc. The circuits could afford to offer cheaper tickets, the fans would be able to attend more races, and the teams could all run at a profit. What is left as F1 would slowly fade into a spec series, like a slightly faster GP2 or F2, while GP1 (a name that Bernie registered a few years ago) takes over as the “New Pinnacle of Motosport” with races in Canada, the USA, Silverstone, France, Germany, Italy, etc.
Over time, CVC would stop earning money fom F1, and offer to sell it back… and GP1 would simply become F1 again, but profiting the teams, like it was supposed to do, all those years ago, when Max and Bernie took on the FIA…
I hope something happens soon, because once again, the politics of F1 are starting to encrouch on what is a fabulous season of sport!
So I say, #CVCout!
