Well, in less than 48 hours the stories about Toto and Susie Wolff being investigated by the FIA for alleged conflict of interest came and went. While the story had a short life and nothing came of it, I reckon this is only a public skirmish in a larger and hitherto private war. There is increasing conflict between the FIA, Formula One Management, and the teams; which we are seeing more of now.
It’s just the beginning…
Much of this stems from conflicting aims of the sanctioning body (the FIA) and the commercial rights holder (FOM and it’s owner Liberty Media). One of these is the FIA’s goal of adding new teams to the grid and having fewer races during the season. This contrasts with FOM’s goal of having ten teams and 22-24 races a year. Money and how it’s divided is the conflict and the catalyst for this was Andretti Global’s bid to join F1.
Over the past few years, Andretti Autosports approached multiple teams with the intent of buying one. Evidently, they came close to purchasing Sauber but the deal was never finalized. The Andrettis went back and submitted an entry to join F1 as a constructor, with GM’s Cadillac division as the engine partner. This bid was accepted by the FIA but FOM has not approved their entry. In fact, the teams don’t want an eleventh car to join the grid even though the current Concorde Agreement allows up to twelve.
The FIA followed the procedures for accepting new bids to join F1. In the past there have been many marginal teams that didn’t last long or were associated with shady owners/backers. The FIA wanted to make sure that any new team that joined the grid had the money, facilities, and people to make it happen. Evidently Andretti Global met all the criteria and were the only one out of four to be accepted.
But getting accepted by FOM has been another matter entirely.
Even though the team’s share of the revenue has doubled over the past two years, none of the current ten teams wants another team on the grid. This despite the $200 million anti-dilution fee that any new team would have to pay in order to join. The line has been that the sport would be better served by having ten strong teams rather than having more that struggle and ultimately fail. Given the history of new teams entering F1 since it’s inception, this is a reasonable opinion. However, the Andretti’s as well as the FIA believe that they would add to the sport given their partners (i.e., General Motors) and new sponsors they would bring in.
So the two are at loggerheads and FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem is applying pressure to the teams to accept the Andretti bid. FOM is digging in their heels and the fight is getting heated. That’s why I suspect we’re hearing and seeing a lot more come out recently about Toto Wolff, since he is one of the owners of the Mercedes F1 team. Evidently there has been conflict between Mr. Wolff and Mr. Sulayem going back several years, now it’s being taken up a notch.
Then there is something else I ran across while researching this topic, the ghost of Bernie Ecclestone. According to respected F1 journalist Peter Windsor, he suspects that Bernie may have planted the story for the media to pick up. This isn’t confirmed but is plausible given Bernie’s history and ongoing disapproval of the direction that Liberty Media has taken the sport. It could be his way of shaking things up and influencing the direction of the sport.
While this looks like the first round in the FIA v. FOM, it’s a variation of a conflict that began in the seventies and reached it’s dramatic conclusion in the early eighties. Yes, the FISA-FOCA War. Just like now, the sanctioning body (again the FIA) and commercial rights holder (Bernie Ecclestone via FOCA) were in conflict over money and the direction of the sport. That conflict could fill multiple books, so I won’t cover that subject here in all it’s detail. However, the current conflict bears some similarities between the original FISA-FOCA War.
While many of the original players aren’t around anymore, the roots of that conflict are the same; the control of the pinnacle of global motorsport. That means we are likely to see escalations, threats, and recriminations in the comings months. This may drag out a while too since the last one took years to resolve. We’ll have plenty to talk about for a while irrespective of what happens on track.
