Last week the eight Grand Prix teams that make up FOTA announced plans to leave Formula One and start their own breakaway World Championship series. The revelation was a response to the FIA’s assertion that all teams wishing to compete in the 2010 F1 season should sign up to the championship before requesting changes to the regulations.
Whilst the possibility of a breakaway hangs over Formula One like a dark cloud there is little chance of it actually happening. F1 teams have split from the sport before but their earnest attempts to create a rival series in the past have been futile.
Thirty years ago the teams were unhappy about new regulations established by the FIA. They were particularly aggrieved with the process used to introduce the new rules, and it moved them to challenge the sport’s governance. The teams started fighting for more control over the regulations and a fairer distribution of the F1 wealth, and when the FIA played hardball they started their own series.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it? History is repeating itself because the exact same scenario is playing out at the moment.
The situation 30 years ago offers a few clues towards how current saga between FOTA and the FIA will pan out in the coming months.
Up until 1981 the Formula One season consisted of independent events that were given World Championship status by the FIA. Each race was a separate entity, as opposed to being ‘part of the championship’, so all of them had to be entered individually by the teams.
Each race would also have its own unique version of the sporting regulations, which is why fewer cars started at Monaco and why Formula 2 machines lined up on the grid in Germany.
Since the teams had to negotiate their own starting money and prize pool with the organisers of every Grand Prix, a few of the British constructors got together and formed FOCA (then known as F1CA). The idea was to give them a bit more bargaining power with the promoters, and to ensure they were not being played off against one another.
Bernie Ecclestone took control of FOCA in 1972 when he voluntarily organised better transport deals for the teams involved. The FOCA members were more than glad to make him their leader after the selfless effort he put into the organisation, and they were instantly rewarded with better contracts from race promoters.
Max Mosley joined Bernie as his right hand man and the two of them set about transforming Formula One.
Over the coming years Ecclestone started bargaining hard with race organisers and he secured a collection of lucrative long term contracts. Under his guidance, FOCA developed into a significant power in the sport.
This upset the manufacturer teams, in particular Ferrari and Renault, who didn’t like the influence the privateer English outfits were enjoying. The FIA also didn’t like it as they felt their control of F1 was under threat. This tension grew into a divide throughout the seventies with the manufacturers and the FIA on one side, against FOCA on the other.
The FIA tried to make life difficult for FOCA wherever possible. They dealt harshly with circuits that had favourable relationships with the teams, they were unforgiving towards FOCA drivers, and they even cancelled the 1979 Swedish Grand Prix to irk Bernie Ecclestone. The race was taken off the calendar because sponsors pulled out, but when FOCA organised a new sponsor the FIA said it was too late and the race could not be reinstated. It was as much a political move as it was a logistical one.
The tension between the two parties came to a head in 1980.
The FIA confirmed a major change to the 1981 regulations by outlawing ground-effect skirts and increasing the car’s weight. This gave the manufacturer teams a huge advantage because they had been developing heavy turbo engines to compete against the aerodynamics used by the Cosworth powered privateers.
Not only that, but it was going to cost a lot of money to build new cars at relatively short notice, and the smaller independent FOCA teams did not have the same resources as the wealthy car companies.
An all out war erupted.
Bernie declared that his teams would not race under the new regulations and he set about flexing his political muscle at the 1980 Spanish Grand Prix.
The FIA had earlier announced that any driver who stayed away from an official briefing would be fined. There was nothing wrong with that stipulation, but the sporting regulations offered by some of the individual race organisers noted that attendance at those briefings was not compulsory. FOCA seized upon this inconsistency and told their drivers not to attend any of the FIA briefings. As instructed, the drivers stayed away and they were predictably given fines. FOCA argued this was not in line with the sporting regulations offered by Grand Prix organisers, but the FIA was unrepentant and drivers who continued to avoid briefings lost their competition licenses.
In response, the FOCA teams refused to take part in the Spanish Grand Prix until the licenses were reinstated. They were taking the FIA head on.
Organisers of the Spanish Grand Prix were insistent their race would go ahead as planned and they let the FOCA teams take part anyway. The FIA then declared the race illegal as the drivers were unlicensed, and the manufactures promptly withdrew.
The race became a non championship event but it showed that FOCA had more sway over Grand Prix organisers than the FIA. It was a victory of sorts.
In order to prevent FOCA from arranging favourable deals with individual race organisers, the FIA announced the formation of the FIA Formula One World Championship. This would standardise the sporting regulations for every race, as well as the distribution of prize money, and it would also ensure that all of the teams, drivers, and promoters taking part had to be licensed by the FIA.
FOCA were incensed with the governing body transforming the sport so they could introduce their new rules, and declared a breakaway series in October 1980.
We are at that same point in the FOTA-FIA conflict today.
In 1980 the fallout led to the formation of the World Federation of Motorsport, an organisation that would administer the World Professional Drivers Championship. All of the FOCA teams would compete and it was intended to fully replace Formula One.
However, organising a rival series was not as easy as Bernie Ecclestone thought it would be. The FIA told all of the circuits and their promoters that if they did a deal with FOCA, they would no longer host any other FIA sanctioned events. This was a serious threat to the circuits because the FIA controlled most of the world’s other motorsport series.
The get around this Bernie tried organising a street race in New York, and looked to other venues that had fallen off the F1 calendar. Still, it was very hard to construct a meaningful championship.
Interestingly, FOCA also found it impossible to find someone to provide insurance for the new series.
Just six weeks after it had been formed, Ecclestone was forced to abandon his attempt at a breakaway. It was F1 or nothing for FOCA, and the current teams will likely come to the same conclusion before too long.
Rather than go back to the FIA with his tail between his legs, Bernie said the FOCA teams would only compete in the first three races of the 1981 F1 season and would do so using skirts.
The FIA saw a chance for reconciliation and cancelled the early races of 1981 to buy themselves some more time to work on a compromise.
This is when FOCA realised a great opportunity to get exactly what they wanted.
The South African Grand Prix had to be moved from February to April as a result of the chaos, but the Kyalami organisers could not comply with this request due to sponsorship commitments. The FIA refused to hold the race as per the original schedule, but FOCA stepped in and offered to run the Grand Prix in February by themselves.
It was a bold idea but Ecclestone and Mosley figured it would strengthen their political position. If they could prove that the FOCA teams were capable of holding their own Grand Prix it might be enough to force the FIA to meet their demands.
FOCA did not have enough money available to stage the race, so had to make a lot of arrangements on credit and take out loans to cover their costs. The teams also didn’t have enough tyres for the weekend so Bernie Ecclestone ended up supplying these himself.
The teams were determined to put on a strong show to fool the FIA into thinking they had done it effortlessly.
Again, it wasn’t that easy.
The race was poorly attended, sponsors had little interest, and it received minimal coverage across the media. In that respect it was a complete disaster and was proof that a breakaway series would never work.
However, the FOCA event still had its desired impact.
Renault executives played close attention to the race and became worried at the prospect of more Grands Prix being run without them. The split was causing serious damage to the sport’s image, and to Renault’s involvement within it, so the French manufacturer told the FIA that it would race with the FOCA teams in future to protect its F1 investment. Renault’s decision was a massive blow to the FIA who, without wholesale manufacturer support, were forced to surrender to most of FOCA’s contractual demands.
The two warring parties worked through a deal and found a compromise that became the 1981 Concorde Agreement, a contract that still exists today, albeit with a few updates. The agreement fully encompasses the governance of F1 and the control over commercial arrangements.
Mosley and Ecclestone admitted at the time that peace with the FIA was inevitable, regardless of their intentions otherwise. The FOCA teams didn’t have enough cash to continue fighting the governing body, and it was in their best interests, as well as the FIA’s, to secure the sport’s future. They knew at the time that a rival series was not a viable option for anyone and that is largely why Mosley is not so worried about the threat of a FOTA breakaway next year.
Everything that is happening in Formula One today happened thirty years ago, and when it all sorted itself out, a single united World Championship run by the FIA was the only option. That is surely what we will see again before the 2010 season starts.
The car companies that own most of today’s FOTA teams do not have the skills or the resources to run their own series. They build cars, simple as that, and in the current economic climate they are building less of them. They cannot afford to race on their own without the global strength offered by the F1 brand, so the threat of a breakaway championship is not a serious one.
Not yet at least.