Something that's been a long time coming: Sauber and Force India have lodged an official complaint with the EU over how the way F1 is run. More here: http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-facing-eu-investigation-after-sauber-force-india-complaint/ I'm glad to see something going through a semi-official channel that has the power to force change... my only hope is that there's a sport still standing once the report is done!
Wonder how little TV coverage Sauber and FI will have now for the rest of the season. If everyone keeps upsetting Bernie, all we'll see is pictures of the Pit Wall soon..........
Bernie's House… This action is well overdue – but always better late than never. It is admirable and courageous – perhaps downright heroic! I wish them the very best of luck. I sincerely hope this will effect some change. My only disappointment is that another team (or two) have thus far been happy to cower in a second rank. Behind this spearhead are silent winks between those who hope their lot will be improved by others' footprints in shifting sands. How odd is it that (for instance) Manor are no longer shouting loudest?… Unusually, TomTom, I've noticed the tag! In response, I'll reiterate my hope for a complete re-working of F1's financial structure which will allow at least some movement in the direction of democracy. What is needed is a transparently fair system. No reward for turning up. No reward for historic status. And no longer a need to hide slimy toadts under a conveniently philanthropic-sounding banner: 'cost cutting' (ahem) – which will never work within a structure of 'haves' and 'have-nots' which it deliberately perpetuates. As I've said before on many occasions, which must include this forum, F1's only long-term hope is that it becomes devastated soon enough for its ashes to rise like the proverbial phoenix. The sooner this happens, the better. And I don't care if in 50 years time people are reflecting on a sport previously called F1. It's just a label which Bernie has milked and milked and milked and milked and milked and milked by playing everyone off against each other. What a clever old Bernie…
Ecclestone responds... kind of Standard stuff, doesn't acknowledge the scandal so as not to cause bad PR, tacitly puts the blame on the teams for accepting the only terms they were offered.
Interestingly Bernie might be happy about this. He can't redistribute the 'prize money' as all the teams have signed the concord agreement and it would cost him big time to re-negotiate it. If the EU says it's anti competitive or unfair etc. then Bernie can blame the EU and redistribute the prize money and no one can complain as he is just following EU law!!!
Yep. BERNIE won't be losing anything here. It's the 'historic' teams like Ferrari, red bull and mclaren who will be losing in a redistribution.
Is Bernie responsible for the distribution of prize money? I thought that was decided by the FIA not FOM. To be honest, Renault's bargaining over historic payments has kind of made me see the other side of the story, they give teams an incentive to stay in the sport. If your team is getting £20m per year just to show up you're going to be reluctant to pull out and lose that money. If Sauber had been getting historic payments maybe Peter Sauber would never have sold his team to BMW. There needs to be a fairer way of deciding it though, championships shouldn't carry any weight, it should reflect a team's loyalty to the sport, maybe a fixed bonus for teams who have been around 5+ years, a bit more for teams who have been around 10+ years etc. Ferrari's case is also slightly different as well as they don't enter F1 under a subsidiary company, so they're properly committed. I think the same opportunity should be afforded to other teams, none of the manufacturers would take it up but you can bet the likes of Sauber would given F1's their only real source of business.
