I thought it was breathtakingly hypocritical, in a sport so two-faced it’s practically a Batman villain, for the FIA to accuse 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” (bolding mine). These guys run possibly the most astoundingly tight and inexplicably tolerated cartel this side of OPEC, and they have the chutzpah to accuse teams of violating competition law?
Danica’s foolish if she does. Sam Hornish, often a contender in the IRL, is currently ranked 23rd in Cup points, does have 3 top tens, but the NASCAR fields are almost incredibly deep. She’ll go from finishing 3rd-10th each IRL race to finishing 15-30 in NASCAR while she figures out the subtleties of the cars and tracks.
This article from the BBC was rather enlightening about the financial bogeyman that’s haunting Ecclestone. I wonder how those investors feel about Bernie running their investment into the ground?
This struck me as well. And it seems that the FIA/FOTA war is more of a pointless pissing-contest based on pure ego and one-upsmanship than any real beef.
But the hard-corp, Nazi-themed sex partier side of me says that cooler (i.e. “money to be made”) heads will prevail and this will all blow over by season end.
I’ve been wrong before, but I refuse to admit it.
I really can’t agree. Obviously there are egos involved you can see from space, but the argument at heart is about the distribution of fully 50% of the commercial rights. That’s not peanuts, that’s huge (about half a billion dollars), and is the reason it’s gone this far at all. The teams seemed to put up with it when the governance it came with wasn’t completely shit, but lately Max has started rule-making from the hip, and that seems to have given them the impetus to address their long-standing grievances.
Certainly, there are elements of pissing contests and one-upsmanship here too, but make no mistake, the beef is very real.
OK. Great. Can we get back to racing now?
Let’s see if there’s a twist…
Well, that’s the start of the resolution (and appears to represent near complete capitulation on the part of Mosley, having extracted merely a promise that the teams will “try” to return their spending to mid-90s levels). Now look for some serious negotiations with Bernie about the distribution of money, the tracks visited, the fees track owners are charged and more. The teams have neutered Mosley; now to get what they really want.
But yeah, hopefully these negotiations won’t be conducted in the papers to quite such a ludicrous extent.
I was really hoping for an outcome like this. Mosley has been one of F1’s big problems (the other being Bernie, of course). It has always seemed to me that the virtual stranglehold over the series these two guys have had, and the strange FOM/FIA division of power/rights, has been a bad thing for the sport. Max and Bernie have acted mainly in their own interests, dropping older, more popular races, adding new ones in places whose only attraction was the money they put in management’s pockets, and generally giving fans the finger.
So how can we get rid of Ecclestone, too, and put the operation of the series on a more rational, democratic, and transparent basis?
Is it possible for FOTA to really put the screws to Bernie now that they’ve ousted Max?Or is that fight starting on totally new ground? It seems like they have the high ground now, so I expect to see them capitalizing on their gain.
Obviously getting rid of both is optimum, but if just one is to go, would Bernie or Max be the better choice?
Actually, I think we do agree…
I believe its all about the Benjamins…
Max and Co. drew the line in the sand and FOTA stepped right over it. And now its almost a stupid game of “chicken”. Who’s gonna blink first?
I’ll just be glad when the Fox contract runs out.
Thought it was over? It’s not over.
Guy doesn’t know when he’s lost.
Reminds me of that old joke:
Q: Why hasn’t Max Mosley been circumcised?
A: Because there’s just no end to the prick…
Will no one rid us of this turbulent pest?
Yay Mark Weber. I haven’t exactly been a fan of his but he’s always seemed to be a good sort and he’s persevered through some tough driving situations that have knocked more skilled drivers out of the sport. Good to see him finally get a win.
Yep, generally happy for Webber, he seems all right (and has put a lot of work in to driver safety over the years). Has to be said, though, that the ongoing political shenanigans (which I can’t even be bothered to summarise) have pretty much sapped any interest I had left; I haven’t even been bothered to look up the rest of the places for yesterday’s race. Who cares who wins this season? It’s been made amply clear that the sport exists only as a superficial manifestation of impenetrable mind-games played by very rich children. Bollocks to this sport, it’s run by idiots.
As an illustration, does anyone remember that shortly after Honda pulled out, Ecclestone was leading a consortium to buy out their team, and Ross Brawn said, “no thanks”? Well, very shortly after that, the FIA decided that Brawn’s team were not an established team; they were a brand new team. Funnily enough, this meant they get much less of the TV money than Honda used to. Coincidence? Don’t make me laugh.
I repeat: bollocks to this sport and its idiotic Hitler-worshipping bum-spanking money men. Right now, I’d rather watch netball.
You are right. Worst part of it is, that as effed-up as it is, prior to this terminal mess of a season we had an incredibly good run of exciting years – '04 to '08.
I don’t know about the conditions at Donington, not having been there since '93, but it’s a far better track layout for F1 and the facilities were about a million times nicer than Silverstone’s back then. I was extremely disappointed when they announced that the European GP would only be held there once.
No giant fields of sticky mud to park in, no having to drive to [del]the middle of nowhere[/del] Towcester…
I remember hearing about a proposed renovation of Brands Hatch to make it F1-ready again sometime around 1999… did that ever happen?
So what does everyone make of the advances of the Old Guard (so to speak)?
Hamilton, Massa, and Alonso all looked good in today’s qualifying rounds. Ferrari and McLaren are making big strides in their performance and Brawn still seems to be struggling a bit.
Hopefully Massa’s injury isn’t serious. I haven’t looked on the any of the F1-news sites yet, but the comments at the end of qualifying indicated he should be okay. I’ll have to go look around and see if he’ll be racing tomorrow.
I’ve also been impressed with Nico Rosberg’s work lately. He’s finally been able to put his practice speeds onto the track when it counts.
Looks like Filipe will be out possibly for the rest of the season.
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2009/07/massa-out-of-gp-but-lucky-to-be-alive/
Looks like he was unbelievably lucky/unlucky.
Wonder who Ferrari will replace him with?
Very scary incident indeed, goes to show you how death is really around the corner at any moment. Hopefully Massa is getting the best possible treatment and there will be no long term issues once he’s out of the induced coma and healed up, but as the last comment of the story that BACI posted said, Massa is probably not out of danger just yet. First thought was of Helmut Marko getting blinded by a stone back in the 70s, but that spring must have been fairly massive.
First guess would be Luca Badoer gets his first race drive in 10 years…