You guys are going to LOVE this ...

SUPER NUMBBER
Can we still call it a 'conspiracy' if the guy clearly says "We 'bought' Ferrari"?

Saying this is a "conflict of interest" is an understatement of EPIC proportions...it's downright corrupted...
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I'll repeat, FIA does not equal FOM. Bernie pays Ferrari extra to stay in the sport, not the FIA, while the FIA makes odd rulings in Ferrari's favour, not the FOM. Max' FIA and Bernie's FOM are often two conflicting entities, and haven't been "pals" lately, either...

SUPER NUMBBER
Apart from the certain realization that F1 is in Ferrari's pocket, I don't quite remember seeing any articles from 2003 describing what Bernie just said. Can you elaborate?
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Except it goes the other way round, Ferrari is in the FOM's pocket.
 
Metar
Except it goes the other way round, Ferrari is in the FOM's pocket.
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That is clearly not the case also. I think we must see it as it is. A deal. A good one for both parts, I presume, or else they wouldn't sign it.

Anyway, here's what Toyota's team president said about Mr. Ecclestone ridiculous claim that FOM "bought" Ferrari:

Ecclestone said Ferrari is hypocritical to ask for more money because it receives '$80 million more' than another team for winning the world championship.

But Howett suggested that if Ecclestone's desire is to split FOTA, which is currently unified and therefore influential, revealing Ferrari's preferential commercial deal is not the way to do it.

"He may be trying to (split FOTA) but all the information that was given is very transparent and openly shared among the members, so it was a bit of a non-event because everybody is aware of the historic status (of Ferrari)," he told The Times.
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Officially, they are - they get paid a handsome bonus for staying in the championship (and occasionally winning it, as it turns out :P). Ferrari get money, FOM gets a to keep a famous name in the sport - that's the deal, and an excellent one for both sides.

Luca's demand for more money for every team (because indeed, Ecclestone gets 50% of the profits!) is a reasonable thing for the FOTA chairman to do, and completely unrelated to the FOM-Ferrari deal - all the teams want more money, and as their representative, he should demand it. The FIA supports this: Max' (and many team-manager's too) dream includes a sport where teams can base 80% of their budget on the FOM money alone, just like they did in the old days.

It's Ecclestone indeed who "broke loose" with his announcement - and it's very, very obviously a move to weaken the FOTA. At the moment, even perennial breakaway-threat Briatore is united with them, and Stoddart and co are out of the series - every one of the ten teams is united, and in this dire financial situation, they're demanding more money from the FOM, which is something Bernie and his CVC friends don't want to give them.
 
Yeah, I agree with what Toyota said there, the teams have known for a while and don't care. Its widely accepted that F1 = Ferrari and Ferrari = F1. A Ferrari without an F1 team is a Ferrari without a soul.
 
Interesting thread. It seems like some of the other posters said Bernie is trying to cause division between the teams.
 
The question is: What WON'T F1 do to accommodate Ferrari? Are we to believe this is the only time they've acted in the interest of Ferrari and their own revenue? Can they be trusted to act and make decisions with sportsmanship in mind, or will Ferrari come first over the competitive spirit?
 
SUPER NUMBBER
The question is: What WON'T F1 do to accommodate Ferrari? Are we to believe this is the only time they've acted in the interest of Ferrari and their own revenue? Can they be trusted to act and make decisions with sportsmanship in mind, or will Ferrari come first over the competitive spirit?
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Very good question. This whole thing casts a shadow of doubt over every forthcoming F1 race. Heads should roll. Start with Bernie and Max.
 
Lofasz
Very good question. This whole thing casts a shadow of doubt over every forthcoming F1 race. Heads should roll. Start with Bernie and Max.
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*sigh*

You people always do this. You want Bernie and Max to go, but nowhere do you suggest anyone as a repalcement? Who would take over from them? What makes them better-qualified to do their jobs? What even makes them qualified to do it in the first place? How do you know they'll even do a better job?

You take any excuse you can get to call for the removal of Ecclestone and Mosely, but haven't you ever heard the expression "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't"? Neither Bernie or Max have done for F1 what Nicolae Ceausceu did for Romania and repeatedly run it into the ground whilst denying reality; the sheer fact that Formula One still exists is testament to that fact.
 
SUPER NUMBBER
The question is: What WON'T F1 do to accommodate Ferrari? Are we to believe this is the only time they've acted in the interest of Ferrari and their own revenue? Can they be trusted to act and make decisions with sportsmanship in mind, or will Ferrari come first over the competitive spirit?
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You don't need bold font to get your point across. And, yet again, you confuse the FIA with the FOM.

The FIA might make decisions in Ferrari's favour, but that has nothing to do with this money-bonus. The FIA doesn't need Ferrari, either, it's the FOM that needs Ferrari, because of the tremendous value as a marque. To the FIA, Ferrari is a highly successful team. To the FOM, Ferrari fans are perhaps 50% of the viewers, and thus a team worth keeping. The fact that FIA stewards sometimes rule in Ferrari's favour, again, doesn't depend on this money, or anything else.

Lofasz
Very good question. This whole thing casts a shadow of doubt over every forthcoming F1 race. Heads should roll. Start with Bernie and Max.
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It's been in place for a few years now - years in which Ferrari also won four constructor's championships - and now it starts to cast doubts?

"Heads should roll" - why exactly? As 'do you race?' said, Who will replace them? And again we hit the theme of FIA vs. FOM:

Mosley, head of the FIA, didn't really damage the sport lately. I highly disagree with his views on spec'ing the series (his notion of cost-cutting includes homologating or spec'ing most parts of the car), and he indeed isn't the best manager in the world, but we can live with him. His agenda is mostly cost-cutting and green-cred lately, and that suits me fine: Some teams may not like it, but that's the way to go if F1 wasn't to stay alive.

Ecclestone, head of the FOM, is the problem here: as manager of F1's financial side, he demands (and gets) a 50% share of the revenues from TV and circuit contracts. To increase said profits, he demanded more and more money over the years, until it reached a whopping 50m$ per venue! These are the biggest problems F1 faces at the moment: An old fart that manages their TV and circuit contracts (something even the teams themselves could agree on) gets 50% of their money. On top of that, he "sold" the rights to the CVC company, for next-to-nothing (300m$ for 99 years of broadcasting - that's 3m$ per season!), which indebted the sport heavily - and now, F1 has to repay a debt that exists for no reason. Bernie, in essence, brings nothing but debt to the sport, and at the same time, kills off many of our beloved circuits.
 
Metar
"Heads should roll" - why exactly? As 'do you race?' said, Who will replace them?
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And just to add onto that - and this is for the people who want Bernie and Max gone - what, exaclty, would you have done differently if you were in Bernie's position? Ferrari are threatening to back out of something they have been a part of since its inception. Are you going to pay them to stay within the sport? Cut them loose? Or something else? And if it's something else, what is it? (Please be specific; don't just say "something else" and leave it at that ...)

If anything, that eighty million dollars went to Ferrari's budget for the next year. It was simply money they didn't have to raise themselves through sponsorship deals. It's not like the teams have a limit on their spending that Ferrari was meeting and the eighty million put them eighty million over the limit. More likely the money went to Ferrari bosses, the people above di Montezemolo who could pull the plug on Ferrari's F1 program at any time ... the odds are that the money FOM paid didn't go towards making the team more competitive.
 
It went exactly towards making the team more competitive. There's something distinctly unfair about this, and it is unfair towards the other teams. Ferrari got bonus money, probably spent within the team to improve the car. Montezemolo is Ferrari's chief, the head of everything. Above him lies nobody - only the Fiat bosses, and even those have no say in Ferrari's affairs, considering they're a profitable division without any money from Fiat.
 
Do you race?
And just to add onto that - and this is for the people who want Bernie and Max gone - what, exaclty, would you have done differently if you were in Bernie's position? Ferrari are threatening to back out of something they have been a part of since its inception. Are you going to pay them to stay within the sport? Cut them loose? Or something else? And if it's something else, what is it? (Please be specific; don't just say "something else" and leave it at that ...)

If anything, that eighty million dollars went to Ferrari's budget for the next year. It was simply money they didn't have to raise themselves through sponsorship deals. It's not like the teams have a limit on their spending that Ferrari was meeting and the eighty million put them eighty million over the limit. More likely the money went to Ferrari bosses, the people above di Montezemolo who could pull the plug on Ferrari's F1 program at any time ... the odds are that the money FOM paid didn't go towards making the team more competitive.
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Well I would love as much as anyone to see Bernie and Max out of the picture but my beef with them has nothing to do with Ferrari and everything to do with them turning F1 into a spec series. I also love that we may no longer have a German, UK or French GP in the near future...

Who would replace them? Idk, maybe Bernie's ex-wife... :lol:
 
Metar
You don't need bold font to get your point across. And, yet again, you confuse the FIA with the FOM.

The FIA might make decisions in Ferrari's favour, but that has nothing to do with this money-bonus. The FIA doesn't need Ferrari, either, it's the FOM that needs Ferrari, because of the tremendous value as a marque. To the FIA, Ferrari is a highly successful team. To the FOM, Ferrari fans are perhaps 50% of the viewers, and thus a team worth keeping. The fact that FIA stewards sometimes rule in Ferrari's favour, again, doesn't depend on this money, or anything else.
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Aaaand....yet again, you explain something that did not need to be explained. Where did I say FOM sanctions the races? Nowhere.

I did say that the heads of F1 as a whole have a vested interest in Ferrari as a cash cow. As they should, given that Ferrari's entire existence is rooted in GP racing and it's fans. Anyone who's associated with them gets a huge chunk of change. Don't you think the FIA knows this? Or do you think the FIA is just an outsider looking in with no interest in tapping more of this multimillionaire business? If that's the case, then I've got a bridge to sell you in Boston.

Only obstacle for Max is, they can't get more power than they're granted by the FOM, owners of the show...unless...they take the backdoor route and bargain with the independent teams themselves, which is what they tried to do by creating a new series. This is where the whole power struggle comes in. They failed because Bernie, as he himself described, "bought Ferrari". If you've got Ferrari, you've got the biggest chip in F1. Therefore, the best course of action for the FIA to gain more control is to win Ferrari over. For the purpose of gaining more power, the FIA DOES need Ferrari.

But...How would the FIA, the ruling body, get Ferrari on their side?

...I'll let you fill in the rest...
 
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Erm, no.

Again, it's the FOM doing all the tapping business. As for Max, he has all the powers he wants - he doesn't get it "granted" by Bernie. Again, Bernie does the financial side, Max everything else. Exactly where does this "conflict of interests" you mentioned come in when you consider that the FOM, as you and I said, don't sanction the series? At the same time, yes, Mosley, unlike Ecclestone, doesn't gain money from Ferrari's involvement any more than from the involvement of, say, McLaren - except, perhaps, because the team with the most points scored has to pay the most to renew their superlicenses, which is something Ferrari had to do often lately.

You're also confusing two events: The 2003 breakaway threat wasn't FIA-sanctioned, and Bernie paid the bonus to keep them in the sport - simple as. The 2008 letter is the first time Mosley proposed an FIA-sanctioned breakaway series - and even then, he didn't propose it, he just said that should the teams decide on such a series, the FIA would be willing to organize it. There's no "battle of the supremo" over Ferrari, but the FIA will happily let Bernie's FOM pay the money to keep them in - it also happens to coincide with Mosley's vision of teams depending on a larger FOM-split instead of sponsors, and it keeps a competitor in the sport.
 
You said it yourself.

The FOM deals with the financial aspect; the FIA deals with the regulations. Two different tasks. Yet, why does Mosley even have to comment on shares and monetary distribution if that's FOM's job? Read between the lines...

You can believe that Max truly doesn't want more power; that the 2003 breakaway wasn't pushed by him. Or you can look at him speaking in supportive terms of a split from F1, which pays his bills. Connect the dots...
 
You're connecting the dots from two different things.

Of course Mosley wasn't more power, but this has nothing to do with our case. The 2003 split wasn't Mosley-pushed, it was a teams-vs-Ecclestone situation, and Mosley would've governed both series either way. In every interview of the time, he was very anti about it - first denying the possibility of a split, and later on saying "he doesn't like it, but it's inevitable".

Why does Mosley comment on the distribution of FOM money? Because, as the leader of the FIA, it's his job to create rules where as many teams can competitively thrive as possible. His "vision" includes not just a smaller budget requirement, but also a return to the days when a team's FOM share made up most of the budget. It's very much his job to comment on the fact that the FOM takes up 50% of the income and essentially does nothing with it (pays off a senseless debt to the CVC, which mortgaged the sport for no reason other than to create a debt and "enslave" the F1), while the teams threaten to fold. Who's going to fight over FOM money? Teams, and the FIA - because the FOM would never give up money without a fight, and the teams need a powerful alliance to claim that money: FOTA, which Bernie is trying to split with his "we bought Ferrari" comment.
 
Just my thoughts after reading this thread.


Ferrari as far as I am concerned should not be getting paid to stay in the championship. Let them throw their teddies out the pram and quit if they want. They get a lot out of been in the championship. So they should not be paid to stay.

You only have to look at some of the strange rulings that went against Maclaren to see something stinks. Corrupt is not a strong enough a word to describe it.

F1 is in danger of becoming sanitised to the point we all fall asleep during races. It should go back to basics like in the past where the gloves were off, and the drivers were aloud to do what they are paid, that is go out and try to win. Look at the way Senna & Prost used to go at each other. If that went on between Hamilton & Massa this year there would be inquires galore and Ferrari would come out on top.

To much medling in results off the track are ruining what used to be one of the greatest sports on the planet.
 
The Grim Reaper
Corrupt is not a strong enough a word to describe it.
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That is one of the most ridiculous statements ever made. There is no corruption in the sport; in fact, the payment to Ferrari proves exactly the opposite! If the Powers That Be were in Ferrari's pocket, they would not be paying Ferrari. Ferrari would be paying them to decide a certain way. And if they'd been doing it for years as you seem to be implying, they would have been found out by now. After all, Nigel Stepney was found out very quickly last year.

There's a reason why McLaren were under such harsh scrutiny last year: it's because they had broken the rules big time in 2007. It's like someone has just been robbed, and the first person the police talk to is one Mr. McLaren. Not because they know he's guilty this time, but because he has been known to rob people before, unlike, say, Mr. Williams, who has not. It's the same thing here: the FIA are looking closely at McLaren and maybe judging them a little more harshly than everyone else simply because they've crossed the line before.
 
Do you race?
That is one of the most ridiculous statements ever made. There is no corruption in the sport; in fact, the payment to Ferrari proves exactly the opposite! If the Powers That Be were in Ferrari's pocket, they would not be paying Ferrari. Ferrari would be paying them to decide a certain way. And if they'd been doing it for years as you seem to be implying, they would have been found out by now. After all, Nigel Stepney was found out very quickly last year.

There's a reason why McLaren were under such harsh scrutiny last year: it's because they had broken the rules big time in 2007. It's like someone has just been robbed, and the first person the police talk to is one Mr. McLaren. Not because they know he's guilty this time, but because he has been known to rob people before, unlike, say, Mr. Williams, who has not. It's the same thing here: the FIA are looking closely at McLaren and maybe judging them a little more harshly than everyone else simply because they've crossed the line before.
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Maybe I was a little harsh in my views.

Yes Maclaren, had crossed the line previously and they got what they deserved, but last year it seemed like everytime there was the slightest of inccidents, the stewards were called in and it always seemed to swing in Ferraris favour. Look at the Hamilton/Raikkonen incident it was a joke for the stewards to get involved. In the past that sort of incident was what made the sport entertaining, drivers going all out toe to toe, but now we have all this medling and changing results after the race. This never happened when Schumacher was barging people off the track to win races & championships (Hill/Villeneuve). It was all considered part of racing.
To me what is the point of watching the race in the first place, when it could all be changed afterwards, because some mardarse didn't like been overtaken, or some rule maker considered the race to exciting.
 
The Grim Reaper
Maybe I was a little harsh in my views.

Yes Maclaren, had crossed the line previously and they got what they deserved, but last year it seemed like everytime there was the slightest of inccidents, the stewards were called in and it always seemed to swing in Ferraris favour. Look at the Hamilton/Raikkonen incident it was a joke for the stewards to get involved. In the past that sort of incident was what made the sport entertaining, drivers going all out toe to toe, but now we have all this medling and changing results after the race. This never happened when Schumacher was barging people off the track to win races & championships (Hill/Villeneuve). It was all considered part of racing.
To me what is the point of watching the race in the first place, when it could all be changed afterwards, because some mardarse didn't like been overtaken, or some rule maker considered the race to exciting.
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It did happen to Schumacher earlier on though, say...1994? But then every man and his dog knew Benetton were up to no good half the time, still doesn't make some of the penalties Micheal got that year particularly fair either, and most of them were knee-jerk reactions because of San Marino.
But I agree that the way stewards rulings work needs to be changed.
 
The Grim Reaper
This never happened when Schumacher was barging people off the track to win races & championships (Villeneuve).
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Schumacher was disqualified from the entire 1997 season for running into Villeneuve, despite coming off second best.

And, for the umpteenth time: the Ferrari deal was with the FOM (the media organisers), not the FIA (the race organisers and rule makers). McLaren and their actions have nothing to do with a deal between the FOM and Ferrari.
 
This is the currently relevant thread, so I'll post it here:
http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?id=45011

Is Bernie trying to split the teams now? I could see teams like McLaren agreeing to this because they exist for F1 but teams like Toyota saying "screw that".
It also makes no sense, I thought we were originally trying to bring down costs for the smaller teams by capping budgets...now he says they can spend what they want if they agree to stick around? Someone please get him out of power!

Oh, and :lol: Bernie isn't pleased about being told his medal system sucks.
 
Lofasz
This is for Belgium you wankers!:sly:
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Belgium was McLaren's prettyboy's fault. Everyone knows the one corner rule and he did a similar thing in France. I'm not saying that he is a bad driver, but like Schumacher his... creative interpretation of the rules i a disgrace.Hamilton is very talented, but he overdrives. It cost him 2008, and a few times nearly cost him 2009.
 
There is a world of difference between short cutting to avoid an accident (Belgium) and short cutting to gain a position (France).

Belgium was Kimi's fault. He braked too early and then squeezed Hamilton and left him with a choice of a short cut or crashing into the Ferrari. He chose the former as any rational Human Being would. He then gave back the position.

Waiting to pass again after at least one more corner has been taken has never been part of the rules and was only introduced in one of the FIA's infamous "Rule Clarifications".
 
Tired Tyres
Waiting to pass again after at least one more corner has been taken has never been part of the rules and was only introduced in one of the FIA's infamous "Rule Clarifications".
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At the risk of getting off-topic, I would have thought that waiting at least one corner before attempting a pass again would be common sense. It would make absolutely clear that you were not gaining anything out of the incident, and if you're good enough to have attempted the pass in the first place, you're good enough to be able to do it again, especially given the way it is so difficult to pass of late.
 
Do you race?
At the risk of getting off-topic, I would have thought that waiting at least one corner before attempting a pass again would be common sense. It would make absolutely clear that you were not gaining anything out of the incident, and if you're good enough to have attempted the pass in the first place, you're good enough to be able to do it again, especially given the way it is so difficult to pass of late.
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But not using this common sense is not exactly "creatively interpreting the rules" is it?
 
Tired Tyres
Belgium was Kimi's fault. He braked too early and then squeezed Hamilton and left him with a choice of a short cut or crashing into the Ferrari. He chose the former as any rational Human Being would. He then gave back the position.
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As most of the prople do, you forget the third choice, "hard on the brakes, let the Ferrari go and join in behind it" which is the most logical possible solution but it certainly wouldn't have been a fitting thing to do for Hamilton, it would have made him look like he had to admit he can't do what he wants to. There was plenty of room to do it but he wanted to go his way.
 

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