Leading car manufacturers, who at one stage were threatening to create their own breakaway series, have made peace with Formula 1’s governing body to end a long-standing battle over how the billion dollar sport should be run.
FIA president Max Mosely and BMW’s Burkhard Goeschel had said that an agreement has been made on all of the outstanding issues. They have stated that a new document will be drawn up and signed in the next few weeks. This will help to govern the sport for the next five years or more.
Ecclestone had already signed an agreement with the GPMA group, who consist of Toyota, BMW, Honda, DaimlerChrysler and Renault, last May. The deal was about the financial side of Formula 1 and was aimed at killing off the rival series threat. Technical details,issues of governance and regulartory process control still needs to be agreed with the FIA however the ruling body stated in August that the GPMA and themselves were in full agreement about the future of Fomula 1.
The existing ‘Concorde Agreement’ that already governs the sport will expire at the end of 2007. All teams have already committed to this for a further five years.
In future, rules discussions will take place with the manufacturers at board level and will bypass individual team management. All current teams, and teams who may come on board in the foreseeable future, are currently owned by a manufacturer or linked to one through their engines. An FIA spokesperson has said that independent teams like Williams will not lose out in the decision-making process and that the FIA’s role was to protect the independent teams and they would continue to protect them in future.
Mosely is trying to make Formula 1 slightly greener and the FIA has already mapped out some energy-saving plans for the next five years. A freeze on engine development in 2007 will allow the focus to change to technologies to save energy and benefit ordinary road ca rs. “We will make research work in F1 more road relevant,” Moseley has stated.”We will move F1 from the technology of the 20th century to that of the 21st century, to move away from F1 being labelled as a dinosaur.The tide of world opinion has just turned regarding global warming. With the changes we have made, we have caught the tide. If we had missed it, F1 could have become irrelevant.”
