Can F1 survive without MAX?

[razta]

All the polls seem to ask can F1 survive without Ferrari, well how about we turn that around....

I'd say it it wouldn't survive - but THRIVE!

[CarlosFerreira]

You mean an association of the teams running the show. Riiiiight. That'd last as long as one pulled a Championship lead over 10 points on the others, or until the stewards went silly and decided something wrong. No, you need someone outside the teams to run the show. Look at the attacks Luca and Flav (the dynamic duo) have pulled on Ross Brawn - their former empolyee!

[razta]

Not quite what i meant mate.
more on the terms that someone with common sense should replace him.

[CarlosFerreira]

You mean another President for the FIA, than? That's OK, I suppose. It's long overdue. I wished Max had resigned a long time ago, but understood he wanted to stay after the ANSMSW5GP thingy. Now's the time for him to bugger off, though.

[DonTirri]

And to imagine Max was actually lauded as a savior when he first became the president.

Lets just say his predecessor Balestre wasnt very popular either

[StoneColdSpider]

i would like to see a president of the FIA...
sum1 who will work with FOTA....
alot of mud slinging has come because of Max not willing to work with FOTA.....

[Robbie]

Hey, I'll volunteer-F1 fanatic and completely biasless(unless Minardi returns....).

Seriously, Max has run his course; politics for the sake of politics are tiring, and for the first time in nearly ten years of obsession I'm considering stopping watching races; the politics are so huge that they detract from the racing. Sad.

[LionZoo]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and say that while Max has made mistakes, I believe his tenure has been more a success than a failure. The post of FIA president is a political one and like all political positions it comes with it the need to compromise and make decisions. Compromise is not a thing most people will like while at the same time it is easy to damn as let's face it, compromise by its very definition means you're not getting what you want and most people tend to be rather petulant when faced with that prospect.

What Max has undoubtedly improved, as he himself points out time and time again, is the safety record of modern F1. What is arguably his weakness is the decline of racing action of F1 itself. After all, the narrow track, grooved tire cars were a bit of a mistake and the various qualifying changes have not always been positive. However, one has to keep in mind F1 is turning more and more into a science all the time and with that comes a certain precision that all teams wield. Hence we have the paradoxical situation of the laptimes of the cars getting closer and closer (think about how much of the field is covered by one second!) while at the same time passing moves seem to be getting less and less. This is partly the cars, at least until the current revision, but also partly because everything is becoming so much better understood that mistakes and indeed foolish acts of bravery that result either in tears or glorious moves are becoming more rare and that has nothing to do with Max and everything to do with the increasing professionalism of the teams. At the very least, Max has shown that he can react, albeit slowly, to the situation by having the Overtaking Committee.

Politics seems to be getting more prevalent through the years, but I don't think this has all to do with Max, but rather is a byproduct of the increasingly huge amounts of money in F1. Very few people are willing to fight for a part of a dollar, but many more are willing to fight to get a piece of a million dollars. I remember reading in 1994 that the budget of Williams was around $40 million. That amount won't get you a backmarker team these days! Since budgets are bigger, stakes will of course become higher and so people will scratch and claw for every advantage they can get to get a better return on investment. This includes strategically on track, through car development, and yes through the backdoors of politics. Afterall, it's not just Max that's telling teams to invent political drama; it takes two to tango and it seems the teams have been extremely willing to oblige and create scandals everywhere.

Max's negotiating tactic, as proven by the latest budget cap row, is to ask for the moon to settle for a field. He obviously sees problems that he wants to fix, trying to keep F1 relevant through KERS and trying to limit costs through the cap. The objectives by themselves are rather noble, but Max seems to lack focus, trying to reduce costs on one hand while increasing costs with other rule changes. Nonetheless, the fact that he is trying to fix the problems that he perceives with F1, and some of them are very true, is often overlooked. Yes he seems to piss off the teams with his changes, but the teams also seem to cry over every little thing and they have seemingly been threatening to quit for the entire 21st Century.

So yes Max has made mistakes, but I believe he's hardly the demon people make him out to be. While yes ANTSMSW5PG was rather unfortunate, that was a setup also. F1 these days is a very political environment simply because of the enormous stakes involved. It's something that few of us either can or are willing to understand. Like modern football, it's moved on and if you want to be a part of it you really have to accept the politics for what it is. If you want racing without politics, I'd suggest firing up your latest PC computer game because anyone that's ever participated at even the local grassroots racing level can tell you that can get extremely political as well. It's just less entertaining there.

So in conclusion, all I can say is the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for."

[CarlosFerreira]

LionZoo,

I perfectly agree. It is a strange game, and for long Max has been on top of it. For instance, back in the 1980's or beginning of the 1990's he realized there'd be a backlash by environmentalist movements against F1, so he forced everyone to drop the silly fuels being used back then (F-India's Ian Phillips was saying another day on BBC that heating some of the cars of that era was enough to make a few breakfasts down the paddock come back up), and always be ahead of road fuels in terms of cleanliness. Same for KERS. Dame for safety.

As someone has pointed out, Balestre was not a popular man himself. F1 nowadays has so much impact and exposure that it attracts a lot of the powerful people; the sort of people that are used to have it their way. The fact is the FIA needs to do things that will not necessarily delight all of these people all the time. As a result, problems arise.

I am concerned, however, that the relations have become especially strained and adversarial. Many egos are at play right now, and I think the protagonists are starting to forget about the objective of the game and just looking at the players. A bit like playing soccer, forgetting about the ball and just just for the other guys' legs, as opposed to going for the ball and, if necessary, eventually also going for the legs.

I was quite startled by the way the new regulation concerning the cap was presented - even if I agree with a lot of it. If the constructors wield, they've had it. Max didn't seem to want to negotiate. I wonder if there's any specific reason for the sudden outburst of autocracy?

[DonTirri]

I wonder if there's any specific reason for the sudden outburst of autocracy?

Maybe he's finally gotten tired of catering to the needs of a handful of pampered millionares who pull a fit whenever things don't go their way?

The way I see the budget cap row is this:

Big manufuncuters teams (basically ran by the aforementioned pampered millionares) cry foul because Max is trying to take away the only thing that has kept their team competetive, i.e the seemingly endless pockets.

The very same crybabies are willing to sacrifice the smaller teams (who in my opinion are the life and soul of F1, have been for a long time), just so that they don't have to actually compete with everyone else in equal terms.

I mean seriously, if Ferrari, Renault and Toyota were forced to cut down on their spending and spend just as much as the other team, do you think they could be competetive with teams used to get more with less like Williams or Red Bull? I doubt it.

The big teams have been succesfull merely because they can just throw around money to get a winning car and a driver. So that is why they are petrified by the sheer thought of the championship turning from "Who has the most to spend" into "Who can get most from what they have", because that is when the privateer teams like Williams would rise back to the top.

This is just my viewpoint.

[CarlosFerreira]

Oh, I agree with you that's the cause. However, I'm not so sure the constructors are so much of a nuisance. Things have changed, they have their place. Sure, their bigger budgets are what makes them competitive, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. F1 is not an equal-for-all discipline. It is a research and resource-driven sport, that benefits from money coming in. I agree with some sort of cap to save constructors from themselves, but the idea that smallish teams should be made to compete on equal terms with the big guys is a fallacy. Money does find a way, and rightly so.

It's a balance game. My problem with the present problem is the "my way or the highway" attitude. That leads nowhere. It's important all constructors have a saying, because that way they will block each other's excesses.

[razta]

the THING is that Max has forgotten what the FIA was set up for.. to REFEREE the sport - not to make LAWS!

[DonTirri]

the THING is that Max has forgotten what the FIA was set up for.. to REFEREE the sport - not to make LAWS!

Actually, FIA was set up to make the Laws. They are the governing body of Motorracing, and Goverments tend to make laws.
Tho I'd like to know how you ended up with such a silly idea.

[CarlosFerreira]

the THING is that Max has forgotten what the FIA was set up for.. to REFEREE the sport - not to make LAWS!

Actually, FIA was set up to make the Laws. They are the governing body of Motorracing, and Goverments tend to make laws.
Tho I'd like to know how you ended up with such a silly idea.

It's probably a mixed thing. The FIA's charter is to run motorsport, and that means setting up some of the rules. For instance, some time ago the FIA decided on single tyre rule for some formulas (like the WTCC or the WRC), and frequently tyre manufacturers and constructors were against.

However, in F1 some of the rules (the sporting ones) can only be approved with the agreement of the teams, as per the Concorde Agreement. The FIA can only approve without discussion rules related to safety. So, I'm not quite understanding how can the FIA push the budget without agreement on the teams.

[Alianora La Canta]

I wonder if there's any specific reason for the sudden outburst of autocracy? {CarlosFerreria - 6 posts ago}

Because FOTA is the biggest threat to his power since Balestre in F1 and has coincidentally appeared mere months before an election. Even the GPMA wasn't this powerful at its peak because the unspoken fear of Ferrari being split away from it was there. By the time the elections came around, it was basically defeated because Ferrari had signed the very deal that has now stopped Max from being so autocratic now. Of course, now Ferrari leads FOTA.

If Max had come up with a well-formed budget cap and got enough agreement from teams to be able to introduce it sensibly, I'd be in favour. As it happens, Article 7.3 b) of Appendix 8 of the Sporting Regulations requires all cost-regulated teams to reveal their staff, suppliers, consultants and agencies to be involved in the cost-regulated year by December 15 of the year before the year they compete. Short of having a brilliant psychic or a far more stable line-up than teams have heretofore managed, this means all the cost-regulated teams will be disqualified at the end of the 2010 championship.

Somehow, I doubt if this clause would have survived in this wording if teams had been consulted as per Appendix 5 of the Sporting Regulations!

As it stands, I have to be with Ferrari on this one, even if I think their veto is superfluous and unfair - if the veto is the thing that stops Max in his tracks quickest, then I am glad they can use it.

[Ross Prawn]

I wonder if there's any specific reason for the sudden outburst of autocracy? {CarlosFerreria - 6 posts ago}

A lot of this is FOTA, which Max and Bernie don 't like and which they are trying to kill at birth.

Look at the following from a recent Autosport article:

FIA president Max Mosley said after finding out about the court action last week that he believes Ferrari does not have a case - because it did not exercise the veto when it had the chance, and also that the veto right was effectively surrendered as soon as the team got involved in the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA).

"Obviously it will all come out in court," said Mosley. "We will say first of all it is no longer in place, and if they wanted to do a veto - they were in the meeting on March 17 and they should have done it there if they didn't agree. Instead, they just sat there. Anyway, it will be our contention that they walked away from that agreement some time ago."

He added: "Essentially they walked away by forming FOTA. They were always supposed to be loyal to the FIA, work with us and cooperate. Of course, Enzo Ferrari traditionally, he would sit in the middle between the British teams and the governing body, and he would move slightly one way or another according to his interests."

"I actually once said they were the most important team, and that got immediately interpreted as giving them special treatment, which we don't and never have," explained Mosley. "They race under the same rules as everybody else.

So the chief of the governing body is saying that they had an under the table deal with one of the competitors, who in return was supposed to work with the FIA and cooperate. But this team was given no special treatment. Er .. I think that means no special treatment apart from the under the table deal which allowed Ferrari to influence the rulemaking.

This is a pretty mind-boggling thing for the head of the governing body to say. Effectively he is confirming that one team had an inside track with the FIA. It would be very interesting to see exactly what the Ferrari-FIA deal was. And to work out what effect this deal has had in recent years. (Why for instance was Spygate pursued with such zeal by the FIA.)

After all of this has been thought about, F1 will survive without Max. Soon please.

[johnston21]

Ferrari lawyer Emmanuel Gaillard, "The annual budget of a top team is 400 to 500 million euros."

[RejectSteve]

Ferrari lawyer Emmanuel Gaillard, "The annual budget of a top team is 400 to 500 million euros."

So Ferrari's budget this year is, what, a third of that?

[Alianora La Canta]

Unless Ferrari is emulating early-iteration Toyota, in which case it could be considerably more than €500m...