The interview with max mouthy


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8109846.stm

Max Mosley has vowed to wage a £1- billion legal war against the eight rebel Formula One teams threatening to set up a rival race series.

On the eve of the British Grand Prix the controversial president of the FIA, the sport’s governing body, switched the attention of Formula One from the Silverstone track to the benches of the High Court, where the next blows in what promises to be a bloody battle of attrition could start early next week.

Far from frightening the “Breakaway Eight”, they were galvanised and insisted that they would go ahead with plans to set up a new race series next year — taking with them the most glamorous names in the sport, including Lewis Hamilton, the world champion, and Jenson Button who is leading the title chase going into the race at Silverstone today.

Button will drive at a Silverstone holding more than 100000 fans today, knowing that he could become the last champion of a Formula One series that started here in 1950. Brawn GP, Button’s team, joined Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault, BMW-Sauber, Toyota, Red Bull and Toro Rosso under the banner of the Formula One Teams Association (Fota) to challenge the authority of Mosley.

But by Friday night they knew they were in a fight as Mosley issued a statement accusing Fota of “serious violations of law, including wilful interference with contractual relations, direct breaches of Ferrari’s legal obligations and a grave violation of competition law”.

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s commercial rights holder, is consulting lawyers to launch a separate action. Legal experts predict that a damages action could run to more than £1-billion, possibly the biggest claim in sport history, between the FIA and CVC Capital Partners, the company run by Ecclestone that owns Formula One’s commercial rights.

Mosley was unrepentant, saying it was impossible to set up a rival series, and that the row over his plans to cap team budgets at £40-million a year was a smokescreen for the real objective — to get him out of the FIA and win more money from Ecclestone’s annual £600-million broadcasting-rights income.

“This is not a serious argument about budget caps,” Mosley said. “The teams want the sporting power and they want the money — and I am not going to let them grab the power or the money. Bernie knows this is an attempt to grab his business. This is serious. One team owes Bernie £100-million and the rest owe tens of millions each, so this is a lot of money involved.

“When you analyse what was between us, it was nothing. They simply want to grab control of the sport on one side and the money on the other. It is all pure fantasy. They know it’s a fantasy and it is never going to happen.”

The Fota teams, though, are putting on a united front, bolstered by the fact that they have agreed to a sign a 50-million bond payable to the rest if any team break ranks.

Even before legal action of the intensity threatened by Mosley, extricating eight leading teams from Formula One will be hazardous. The BBC, which paid £250-million for broadcast rights to Formula One for five years, is only one television company scrutinising the small print of its contract. No television station will want to broadcast Formula One next year without Ferrari, McLaren and their star drivers.

For the breakaway eight, there are daunting hurdles ahead and a frightening deadline looming to be ready for next season. They will need a structure to sort out regulations, find television and radio stations willing to pay for broadcast rights and a range of circuits, as well as persuading sponsors, spending tens of millions of pounds, to stick with them.

But they already have experience. When teams threatened a similar breakaway five years ago, they compiled all the data they would need, had a 1-billion bank guarantee and 12 circuits ready to join them. The teams backed out last time, but the signs are that this time — even threatened by lawyers — the teams will walk away from Formula One for good. — ©The Times, London

[Edited on 21-6-09 by mangogrooveworkshop]

And then you'll have what it always was and always will be: a game played by unscrupulous scoundrels trying to screw each other out of OUR money we pay to go watch. If it happens, it will all be dead: just look at the US with CART and Indy.

It'll get sorted I'm sure. Theres just too much money tobe lost by splitting F1 in two.