Did the FIA effectively call the bluff of the Formula One Teams Assosciation? Given the May 29th deadline for submission of entries for the 2010 season, A few noatbles decided to face off with Max Mosley about the proposed ‘two-tier’ formula for next year. All sounding a little like a double-decked diffuser to the uninitiated. Ferrari, BMW, Renault and Toyota all decided that unfair was unfair, and if Max didn’t want to play by the rules that FOTA hasn’t quite finalised yet, and carry on with the FIA’s planned £40,000,000 budget cap and a technical carte blanche for any team managing to stick to it, then they would take their ball and go and play with it elsewhere.

First point, these are motor manufacturers, companies who are going through a hard time financially, with little relief in sight. Their core business is making cars, Formula One is a showcase for their automotive technology, not their raison d’etre.  With the exception of Ferrari, who only make cars to pay for their racing team, and have been in the series since the start, F1 is not what they’re all about. Second point, if they’re in financial trouble, doesn’t a budget cap make sense? Third point, all the manufacturers have been against the ‘dumbing-down’ of  F1 technologies, with the removal of driver aids and all the clever kit. If these teams really see F1 as a technical showcase, then falling in line with rules that would allow them to show their technical expertise at a bargain price would seem to make sense. So, final point, was this stance just an excuse for the manufacturer teams to bow out of the sport with some dignity still intact, using the rule changes as the public reason for no longer participating, to cover the financial embarassment of not being able to afford to continue? FOTA are still looking for a scaled reduction in costs, perhaps over a couple of years, Max wants it all to happen now.

McLaren sit in between. the pure manufacturers and the privateers. They’re part owned by Daimler Chrysler Mercedes Benz, but they are also a racing team, albeit one with diverse interests. Then there’s Brawn, Williams, The Red Bulls and Force India, all privateer teams whose primary business is supposedly racing, and nothing else. It appears Brawn are/were funded by Honda to some degree, and have a smattering of sponsorshp to help with the bills. The rest rely on other means to drive in circles. It could be said that both the Red Bull teams and Force India are the marketing playthings of rich businessmen, leaving only Williams as the pure racing team, a true privateer reliant on F1 to exist, although they have designed and built all the chassis for Max’s latest budget series, the reborn F2 series, so there is external finance away from the core F1 business.

So, little surprise that when all the teams seemingly refused to sign up for the 2010 rules en masse,  Williams blinked first in the game of chicken with the FIA. With everything to lose, Frank and Patrick were always going to sign on the dotted line. This started a rift in the otherwise inpenetrable FOTA stance. Luca Montezemolo had Williams suspended from FOTA for failing to toe the party line, but Frank and Patrick have a company and several hundred jobs at risk, could they be blamed for protecting their core business? The others carried on with their stance of non-compliance, right up until the last day, when they unilaterally signed on for the 2010 season, just two days after Williams broke ranks.

No-one truly believed that they wouldn’t sign. They couldn’t really go for the full-on brinkmanship, as too many other teams were ready to dive onto their places. Entries from Prodrive, Lola, Campos, USF1 and Superfund are competing for the last three slots, adding six new cars to the grid. Prodrive had already secured the twelfth and final slot a couple of years back, when Super Aguri were still making up the numbers, but this attempt fell foul of the customer car dispute. Given the fickle nature of the governing body, will Prodrive’s failure to show up last time go against them this time? Similarly, Lola turned up for a drive around  Australia in 1997, without any serious financial backing. They failed to qualify by a horrifying margin, and withdrew fromthe sport at the next race. Will Lola’s ill-conceived previous attempt count as a black mark? The remaining hopefuls will need to be assessed on their merits, but you’d have to doubt the FIA or FOM judging against a full-blown American enrty such as USF1. Superfund have the money, but little else, and Campos, whilst sucessful in the lower formulae, might not be ready to cut it with the big boys.

It’s fascinating stuff, but outside of the prospective new arrivals, those who are part of the status quo were never really in doubt. Now their bargaining power is diminished by the split with Williams, and the submission of their entries, despite FOTA’s insistence that these entries are “conditional” to a revision in the rules and the ever unlikely signing of a new concorde agreement. Max and Bernie must be pissing themselves.