Ecclestone: F1 doesn’t need Concorde deal

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone says the 2013 Concorde Agreement, which the FIA said would be settled “within weeks” last October, does not need to be signed.

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‘No need’ for Concorde – Ecclestone (ESPN)

“We don’t need the Concorde Agreement signed. It doesn’t matter to me whether we have got the Concorde Agreement or not.”

Warwick promises Silver lining (Sky)

“We have increased our parking facility, we have improved the camping facilities which let us down a bit last year and we have increased park-and-ride. So we are going to try and take a few more people off-site and bring them in by coaches and that will make a massive difference to the number of cars on-site.”

Emilio’s perfect storm (FT, registration required)

“Some of [Santander head Emilio] Botin’s success must stem from his sheer physical energy. A friend recalls seeing him at the Monza Formula One Grand Prix a couple of years ago, when Ferrari – sponsored by Santander – swept to victory with Spaniard Fernando Alonso at the wheel. ‘Emilio had a little Ferrari flag and as soon as the car was over the finish line, he leapt out of his box waving it furiously and then sprinted along towards Alonso. He ran for 200m. He’s incredible.'”

Niki Lauda And The Brawn/Lowe Saga At Mercedes (Speed)

“Brawn made it clear that the Lowe saga, and the suggestions that Ross was on his way out, had created some instability. The fuss certainly confused Hamilton, who obviously saw Ross as one of the main reasons to join Mercedes. ‘I think it’s disappointing that it got into the media, because it can be disturbing for the team,’ said Brawn. ‘That’s the disappointment. I want our guys focused completely on doing the best job they can for this coming season.'”

Lewis Hamilton – My First Day with Mercedes (YouTube)

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Comment of the day

I was spoiled for choice for a Caption Competition winner: The best part of 200 suggestions were posted before the round-up.

I especially enjoyed those from Ed Spencer, BenH, Prisoner Monkeys, James Brickles, Andae23, Hotbottoms, Anonymouse and Todfod.

However this winner is this one suggested by @PlutoniumHunter:

The tyre degradation issues at Mercedes are worse than Lewis ever imagined.

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Shelley Lee and TNFOX!

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On this day in F1

Rene Arnoux scored his first F1 victory in the 1980 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Images © Pirelli/LAT, Mercedes/Hoch Zwei

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29 comments on “Ecclestone: F1 doesn’t need Concorde deal”

  1. 0:06

    Straight in for the bro hug.

  2. As much as I love Bernie and his mysterious ways, the Concorde thing is getting a bit silly. It’s mighty dandy he has contracts with all the individual teams (which strikes me as odd, since it was widely accepted Marussia hasn’t signed the Concorde Agreement as well), but I understand Wolff and Boullier when he says the deal involving the FIA helps regulations stability and gives a more direct sense of a safe deal.

    Bernie is a master at saying A one week, B the other, then coming back to A 2 months later, so we might see a Concorde for 2013-2020 in a few days as well.

    It got me thinking about something as well, with all the new races and teams and drivers slowly becoming more vocal about the number and location of races, could it be the FIA or some teams are also trying to fend off a Concorde allowing more than 20 races? Us fans probably wouldn’t mind, but with the FIA cutting costs and teams in financial trouble, 25 races would not just cost more money in a logistic sense, but would most likely cause the teams to hire more personnel. That would probably give Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes an edge, but I highly doubt we want another spending war, or team staff falling ill during the season.

    1. Looking at Bernie’s comments, I think he means that the season can start without a Concorde Agreement. The Australian Grand Prix is just seven weeks away, but if it takes more than seven weeks to come to an agreement that satisfies everyone, then that’s okay.

      1. I think he means that the season can start without a Concorde Agreement

        While that seems obvious @prisoner-monkeys, as @npf1 writes, this is Bernie doing the talks (in an article written by someone who does “his” PR more or less)

        To me it means he is trying to push Todt to accept the terms. The fact its taken as long as it has rather points to Todt being amongst the toughter deals Bernie has sealed. I don’t think the number of races is the issue here, but given that the FIA proposed to get a bigger share of the pie, its safe to say its anoter case of this being “only about the money”

  3. What a great round up :-) for today . Both the videos were interesting to watch especially the one with the ROARING engines of the 80’s :D

    1. Agree on the Brazilian GP video, safety has improved but it’s hard to see how the “show” has improved!

      1. Why oh why do the people who make these videos have to put “porno music” over them?

  4. NASCAR doesn’t have an equivalent of a Concorde Agreement, Indycar doesn’t have a Concorde agreement, Grand-Am, ALMS, NHRA, SCORE, BITD, ARCA, UARA, etc etc etc don’t have any sort of Concorde agreement and they all seem to get along just fine without it.

    1. @fisha695 Yet F1 gets by just fine with it. F1 has a much much bigger presence and involves thousands of employees worldwide representing some of the biggest names in automotive manufacturing. The deal works and the reason F1 is F1 right now is largely down to that agreement.

    2. Its true that other series don’t have a Concorde agreement, However they don’t have the sort of world-wide presence or have the sort of cash flying around that F1 does.

      You also need look at the way some of those series are run. Nascar is run with an iron fist, They just do whatever they want to do & basically ignore what teams/drivers think. Indycar is a mess & Grand-Am/ALMS are merging next year.

      You could legitimately argue that Indycar in particular would greatly benefit from having some form of binding agreement similar to the Concorde agreement between all involved as its biggest issue is that with the way its run everyone’s running after there own agendas.

    3. As Dizzy writes, NASCAR is a business where the organising body does not need a Concorde Agreement, because they have everything in hand. They deal with both tracks and teams, its not a 3 sided agreement.

      And I would say that stating that the other racing series (apart from F1 and NASCAR) you mentioned are doing just fine, is questionable to me. I think there is one enormous difference – neither of them are actually making much money for those involved, so its might well be that something like the CA would be just what these series would need, as F1 needed it when that first CA was signed years ago.

      1. To add to what @bascb said regarding Nascar dealing with the tracks directly, Something else that helps is that Nascar owns ISC (International Speedway Corporation) which owns a fair chunk of the tracks Nascar races on.

  5. That guy behind Bernie deserves a caption competition of his own! :)

    1. The guy behind Bernie is the Director of Pirelli Group.

      1. That much better! :)

  6. I made a comment on the subject Brawn mentions, a few days back on JAonF1, because I found it weird that head figures are talking so openly about approaching an engineer from a rival team, so I might as well paste it here. :)

    Isn’t it a bit strange that he is talking about Paddy like he is a free lancer.

    All this public talking about how Paddy might leave his current team, coming from the side he is negotiating with, won’t go well with him.

    Can you imagine how Ron Dennis and Martin Withmarch might be looking at Paddy in the middle of all of this. This can’t be good for the development of their car.
    Especially with all the guys in the factory being unsure if their main man is going to depart in a matter of days or weeks or whenever.
    And if nothing comes of it, how can Paddy keep working at McLaren after this?

  7. If you pause at 0:41, I could swear they look as if Mercedes just announced they are withdrawing from F1. :)

  8. There’s the 20m photo of Albert Park erected 7 weeks before the event and they wonder why it cost so much to host!

  9. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    27th January 2013, 4:08

    I’m sorry, but I can’t stop laughing at the guy standing next to Bernie. His expression is priceless!

  10. Lol, my 3rd COTD, 2nd Caption of the day and all 3 times its something about Merc!

    1. davidnotcoulthard
      27th January 2013, 8:48

      With an MSC avatar!

    2. @plutoniumhunter It’s a good one, well done!

    3. A mercedes specialist then! Congratulations @plutoniumhunter :-)

  11. I guess I can understnd the FIA’s reluctance to sign a new deal when they’re probably not even sure how things are going to work long term with the new V6 on the horizon. They need to ensure a fair playing field as much as possible and naturally it’s going to take a while for that to happen and to figure out how it’s going to happen.

    1. I think its a lot easier. They asked for more money out of the deal, and it seems Todt is still holding out for more than Bernie is willing to give.

  12. That article about Santander is hugely interesting to read. And Couper’s article on Ross, Niki, Toto and Paddy is very nice too.
    And then there are the nice pictures and video’s to add to them. Seems to me that Shelley Lee and TNFOX could hardly ask for a better birthday present :-)

  13. With the engine leasing deals being priced around $39million for 19-20 races it’s hard to see how these restricted design and development engines are actually saving the teams any money, you should be able to do a lot of re-building and modifying for $2million per race.

    1. it’s hard to see how these restricted design and development engines are actually saving the teams any money

      Saves the engine manufacturer’s a big chunk in R&D, With the restrictions in engine’s for the season teams are having to spend a massive amount less in engine’s & the increased reliability is also saving both manufacturer & team a big chunk of cash.

      When engine development was more open, The manufacturer’s would constantly be developing that engine & would usually come out with several specifications through the year, Including engine’s specifically designed to certain tracks.

      It also wasn’t uncommon for an engine to be changed after every session & with engine reliability always a question teams were having to spend a lot more on how many units they ran through a season.

      In terms of the next spec, Cost’s will be higher initially as its new technology which everyone needs to get to grips with. 2-3yrs down the line however the cost’s will come down substantially & they should end up having to spend less on engines than they do currently. Same was true in 2006 when we went from V10s to V8’s, Initial cost’s were up but now there spending a massive amount less on engine’s than they were then.

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