In a new development in the FIA-FOTA row, Bernie Ecclestone has publicly declared he expects Max Mosley to stand down in October.
It probably won’t make the teams any less wary of the situation, but it rather undermines Mosley’s threat to remain at the head of the FIA.
Max Mosley will stand down, Bernie Ecclestone promises
“Ecclestone offered this reassurance to those who fear that Mosley could yet split Formula One by trying to stay in office for a fifth term as president of the world governing body. ‘I have no doubt in my mind, as long as I’ve known Max, he’s always done what he said he would do,’ Ecclestone said in an upstairs office in one of his motorhomes.”
James Allen’s Friday form guide
"McLaren have made a useful step but knowing them it will work well here and then not work elsewhere."
Pat Symonds: “We were talking about overtaking earlier and I think there is too much reliance on strategy to be used for overtaking. And this is one of the things that I think I saw at Silverstone; people had similar performance and they were thinking, well, I have a couple of laps in this car so I will just push for two laps and I will get in front of him in the pit stops. But without refuelling maybe we will see a bit more racing. I think we have to keep an open mind. Let’s try it for a few years.”
"The team appointed 35-year-old Mexican Juan Pablo Ramirez, who has been with the team since 2003 most recently as a test engineer, to take over the role ahead of this weekend's German Grand Prix"
Nick Wirth: "Our partners will be joining us in a few months' time. They are supporting some teams at the moment and they're well known. They sat next to us in the due diligence meeting with the FIA and said 'we are supporting these guys and this is why.'"
Vatanen to run for FIA presidency
"Responding to requests from many FIA member clubs, I shall stand for presidential elections of the FIA in October this year"
"The rumour in the paddock at the Nurburgring was that Sebastien Bourdais will soon depart Scuderia Toro Rosso, to be replaced by Spanish up-and-coming racer Jamie Alguersuari." Alguersuari would become the youngest F1 driver ever if he got the call-up. More on him here: Jaime Alguersuari (Meet the Rookies)
It’s time for Bernie Ecclestone to step down as head of Formula One
"Ecclestone is 78 years old and one of the wealthiest men in England. So take your money, Bernie, and your crazy comments and leave the sport for good." (Thanks Gman)
"The shock, for the F1 people, who usually don’t take a blind bit of notice of what goes on outside the Paddock, came from the fact that for the first time in living memory, there was an equally major traffic jam on a Thursday. Quite why they had to dig up the road outside the main entrance on the Grand Prix weekend is one of life’s mysteries."
"Whether he jumped or was pushed, the speculation this evening was that he may be on his way to Ferrari. Willis is a fluent Italian speaker and his wife is Italian. He apparently offered his services to Ferrari but the word I’m hearing tonight is that he is not going there."
Both sides agree F1 row is close to conclusion
"After the rather farcical situation yesterday when the eight FOTA teams were told they were not entered in the 2010 championship and therefore had no vote, the five remaining teams then simply voted through the package agreed in Paris on June 25th. This means the rules for next year will be as 2009, but with no refuelling and no KERS. There will be no budget cap and Cosworth will have no special performance advantages."
These are links I’ve bookmarked using Delicious. You can see my Delicious profile here.
scunnyman
11th July 2009, 3:30
And we are supposed to believe what Ecclestone says about Mosley are we? why?
Martin
11th July 2009, 3:37
Do you know how to tell if Bernie is lying…His lips are moving.
Maksutov
12th July 2009, 7:19
lol, true that
scunnyman
11th July 2009, 3:42
“Mosley is playing the strong man, looking for two key conditions to be met; the teams to sign the new Concorde Agreement and at the same time to agree a legally binding agreement among themselves (including the new teams) to reduce costs to early 1990s levels. The feeling is that once those two things have been done, he will not stand for re-election in October, because he will have achieved what he set out to achieve.
For the teams, their conditions are that the FIA must sign the agreement too and Mosley must step down in October.”
So who’s will is going to win at the end of the day?
The teams will want categorical proof that mosley will stand down. He wants the teams to sign first.
STANDOFF
I think for the teams to be able to trust Mosley he needs to stand down with immediate effect. If they leave hime to go in October how much harm can he still do to F1?
Maksutov
12th July 2009, 7:28
Lots
Kovy
11th July 2009, 4:18
It will suck for Brendan Hartley is the new test driver gets to replace Bourdais for the rest of the season. Now that’s what I would call bad timing.
Ali Adams
11th July 2009, 4:29
Here is the latest:
Fota have given Bernie Ecclestone and CVC Capital Partners, the holders of the sport’s commercial rights, until this weekend to indicate their willingness to go along with their proposed breakaway grand prix championship, unless things can be sorted out for all three parties to agree a lasting peace with the FIA. Fota do not want to wait any longer to start up their series, if talks with the FIA remain at their current impasse.
unconfirmed reports suggest that Fota have given FIA president Max Mosley a letter of resignation to sign, again with a deadline of this weekend.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/ecclestone-given-ultimatum-over-new-championship-1741782.html
scunnyman
11th July 2009, 7:57
Interesting article Ali, and thanks for the link.
But it seems to have been written the wrong way round to me.
Surely the ultimatum to Bernie and the CVC should be to have to show willingness to agree terms for a continuation of the FIA world championship by this weekend, and then if not then FOTA would start on their breakaway.
Just seems strange that FOTA would want signs of an agreement for a breakaway before discussions with FIA had broken down.
And as for the resignation letter to Mosley, that sounds a bit far fetched to me. Sounds more like a mafia trick. Sign here or else!!!!! That sort of letter would just antagonise Mosley into making things worse.
If it IS not true then the media is going to have upset Max Mosley for sure. And who will he blame???? not the paper or the journalist.
Maksutov
12th July 2009, 7:27
We’ll just have to wait and see, but i must agree, I dont think any of that is going to work, and as you say, Mosley will just come back firing even more. It’s in his nature. He would rather see F1 go down and burn to dust before he steps down by force.
The only hope we have is if Mosley loses internal support. the only way this can happen is if a new promising candidate comes along and convinces the FIA council members to support him instead. Which I am glad to see happening slowly with Ari. the only way to win this war is from within. Take away that which gives Mosley the most power, and that is the support from his slave friends.
dsob
12th July 2009, 13:29
FOTA is playing their cards right, for once. Having the guarantee that CVC supports their new series, if they go that way, only strengthens FOTA’s hand in negotiations with FiA.
CVC is a huge holding company. The pressure CVC, through the members of individual companies’ officers, could bring to bear on FiA is incomprehensible. So CVC says, hey FiA, we don’t want really to see FOTA go to their own series, but we WILL support them if they do-heck, we got to make some money somewhere! So stop screwing around, get Mosley out, and get it right !!!
That is what gives teeth to FOTA’s demand for “I resign definitely and without fail no matter what.” over Max Mosley’s signature. Which, IMHO, will close the rift and all else is just a matter of hammering out what few small details remain.
CVC has too much invested in F1 to let Mosley “see F1 go down and burn to dust before he steps down by force”.
Crunch time has come for CVC, and CVC is about to kick some tail. Their 2 billion in debt doesn’t go away if FOTA go to a series of their own, and even if CVC did run the new series for FOTA, they’d still not make enough money to cover that debt.
The press is reporting today that CVC insiders say Bernie is about to be removed from his position and “kicked upstairs” to a nice secluded office where he can watch Roary the Race Car and dream of tall women.
Forcing FiA’s hand to vote “no confidence” on Mosley can’t be far behind. I believe CVC has already started the butt-kickin’.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
11th July 2009, 9:08
Can’t imagine Mosley reacting to that very positively. I see Vatanen is at the circuit this weekend…
Maksutov
12th July 2009, 7:30
Vatanen is going to provide that extra pressure that Mosley did not expect.. he is already getting support from some FIA members. Lets see what happens…
Achilles
12th July 2009, 10:59
Hey Ali, just read this, perhaps it is relevant….What does Lehman Brothers know about the future of F1 that we don’t? It certainly knows something because news has come out in the Financial Times today, courtesy of Pitpass’ business editor Chris Sylt, that the bankrupt bank has won a battle to keep its shares in F1 and the right to repayment of a $550m loan it has given the sport.
Lehman must believe that the debt will be paid back and the shares will increase in value otherwise surely it would have dumped them just as it has offloaded its loans to home-owners who couldn’t afford to make the repayments. From the outside, F1 looks like it should be in a similar position.
After all, if the FOTA teams start a rival series, as they have been threatening, then F1’s revenues will collapse along with the value of shares in the sport which could fail to pay back its debt mountain now standing at $2.3bn. The noises coming from FOTA this weekend suggest that a rival series is on the cards again but Lehman’s eagerness to keep hold of the F1 shares and debt suggests otherwise.
Of course Lehman’s knowledge about the security of F1’s future will have come from none other than the sport’s boss Bernie Ecclestone and its majority owner, the finance firm CVC. They must be pretty confident they can avert a breakaway series and with a knowing wink Sylt says that the time to reveal their strategy will soon be upon us.
Indeed, Lehman was so eager to retain its 15% stake in F1’s holding company Delta Topco that it actually fought off CVC itself.
Lehman first became an F1 shareholder in 2002 when it took over a stake held by German media company Kirch after it went bust and failed to pay back a loan provided by the bank. Lehman sold its stake to CVC in 2006 but then reinvested in Delta Topco and provided $550m of the $2.8bn debt which CVC used to buy the sport.
However, Delta’s Articles of Association, the rules which govern its operation, give its directors the power to force any shareholder which goes bust to sell its stake for a fair price to a company of their choice. On October 10th last year, five days after Lehman Commercial Paper, the bank’s company which directly owned the F1 stake, went bust, it received a letter from Delta demanding that it sell its shares to certain funds for a fair price.
However, US bankruptcy court filings reveal that the fair price is actually discounted whereas, according to Lehman, “market value would yield a purchase price for the Formula One investment materially in excess of the fair price.” Accordingly it decided to move the shares and right to repayment of the debt into a new holding company containing the valuable assets in Lehman’s portfolio.
Lehman will emerge from bankruptcy as a healthy company having cast off all its worthless assets and debt which is not likely to be repaid. It doesn’t think its F1 investment falls into either category and so it will join Lehman’s other valuable assets.
CVC agreed to waive its rights entitling it to force bankrupt shareholders to sell their stakes to a company of its choosing and an insider says that the reason for this is that Lehman is “not selling it to a third party, they are just passing it from the left hand to the right hand…it’s effectively no change.” Nevertheless, CVC has written to Lehman saying that it has only waived its rights on this one occasion and this doesn’t mean it will do so in future.
So, F1 has managed to retain the same shareholders despite one being bankrupt. That’s quite a feat. Now let’s see how it manages to avoid a breakaway. Big business, never as transparent as it seems…lol.
persempre
11th July 2009, 12:25
Just watched Vatanen interviewed on BBC.
He seems to have the right attitude.
persempre
11th July 2009, 12:31
????? – Above appeared in wrong thread. Strange things happening. My apologies!
jolunam
11th July 2009, 12:26
To Scunnyman
Maybe the information is right. Ok, fans would like a clean breakaway series without FIA and FOM, but it would much easier to bring CVC with them because they are the ones who have credible grounds for lawsuit (some teams have contracts) and could block or make harder negotiations with track owners and TV stations.
Anyway, now FOTA is the one creating the wedge between the other two parties (Max & Bernie’s favourite tactic for years) by giving CVC shareholders a way out to preserve some of their profits.
The pressure is now on Mosley who is alone because Bernie has been been deemed irrelevant in the current negotiations.
Again, if a breakaway series happens, I would prefer a clean one, but you don’t always get what you want.
alan
11th July 2009, 23:24
I do not believe anything either Bernie or Max say apart from this – Max will stay and yes Bernie likes dealing with dictators – christ aint he one? – as for a new series – they had their chance and dealing with the devil you think you know never works fota – you have screwed it by staying with Fi and fia
Prisoner Monkeys
12th July 2009, 6:37
Well, now Ecclestone’s comments about Vatanen being the wrong man for the job make sense: he won’t be able to control Vatanen the way he does Mosley.