I take everything bad I said about Whitmarsh back now....... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/05/06/uk-motor-racing-prix-rights-idUKTRE7454Y420110506 Speaking to reporters at the Turkish Grand Prix, Whitmarsh responded to reports of a possible bid for Formula One by media group News Corp and Exor, the financial holding of Italy's Agnelli family which controls glamour team Ferrari through carmaker FIAT. He told a media briefing he would have no problem with Exor becoming involved, saying he was "completely relaxed" about it despite the Ferrari link and shrugging off a suggestion that there could be a conflict of interest. The Briton said teams, whose 'Concorde Agreement' with the governing FIA and commercial rights holder CVC expires at the end of next year, wanted above all a stable and sustainable sport and who owned it was not their biggest concern. "I think it ultimately is desirable to have team ownership on commercial rights," added Whitmarsh, who is also chairman of the teams association FOTA. "To be sustainable you need the appropriate level of investment to promote and develop the sport, you need the appropriate distribution of the revenues to teams to make it sustainable and those are the primary things. "If you have all those things and you have good owners, whoever they are, that is positive," said Whitmarsh. "The teams then, I think, have all got to look at whether we -- each of us -- want to be involved in an ownership model in the future, if the current owners want to sell." TEAM MEETINGS Whitmarsh said FOTA would be meeting at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday to discuss the latest developments. He denied that any employee of the top teams -- Ferrari, McLaren, champions Red Bull and Mercedes -- would be getting together with News Corp executives next week. However Whitmarsh could not say whether the major team shareholders, which would include investment groups from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi as well as the Red Bull energy drink company, might be meeting them. "We have to be respectful of our relationship with the current commercial rights holder and in the limits of that we are not entering into any negotiations," he said. "But we are all part of entities where our shareholders talk, they have businesses and they may well be having discussions. But it's not for me to confirm what they are doing and where they are going." Formula One's major players have traditionally wanted the sport to be shown on free-to-air channels in the major markets to draw the biggest possible audience, something that would not be the case with News Corp's paid-for TV channels. Whitmarsh reiterated that position. "I think it's clear that the business model of all the teams relies on free-to-air. We're selling a large, broad, media exposure. That's the business model and I'm sure that's the business model all the Formula One teams will require going forward," he said. "It's a much more complicated issue than terrestrial free-to-air versus pay-per-view but I think that what we require in Formula One is a mass audience to television, mass audience to the pictures we produce, whether that's internet or whatever the means."
They took over and were too lazy to do it themselves and it's the major contributing factor in how Ecclestone (Brabham) took control in the first place I think.
Whatever the history, Whitmarsh's view would seem a realistic appraisal of the future interests of the competitors in F1 (with the possible exception of Ferrari, who may appear to stand to gain - at least in the short term).
