F1 breakaway series?

[xpensive]

Everyone is acting like a 16 year old couple who argue every 5 minutes and threaten to break up all the time. Both sides need to compromise for the long term and accept their marriage.

Think of the children!

Why compromise with the profiteers? By 2013 MrE will be 90-something and the time has come to ditch the bloodsuckers and get F1 back to an affordable level for the visitors, the way money has led F1 to races in Asian dictatorships with half-empty grandstands rather than tracks with a serious audience is outrageous.

[bot6]

Yes, I don't see what FOM brings to the sport at the moment.

By the way, does anyone know who owns the actual "Formula 1" brand, the FIA or FOM/CVC?

[donskar]

Everyone is acting like a 16 year old couple who argue every 5 minutes and threaten to break up all the time. Both sides need to compromise for the long term and accept their marriage.

Think of the children!

Why compromise with the profiteers? By 2013 MrE will be 90-something and the time has come to ditch the bloodsuckers and get F1 back to an affordable level for the visitors, the way money has led F1 to races in Asian dictatorships with half-empty grandstands rather than tracks with a serious audience is outrageous.

X is in fine form with this post -- I agree completely. And add to his complaints the cavalier attitude toward rules -- example this new ban on exhaust blown diffusers, or is it engine timing they are now regulating? Which ever, rules should not be changed just days before a race. Those who have the biggest stake in the sport: teams, sponsors, manufacturers should have a very significant say in how the sport operates.

[Sebp]

Yes, I don't see what FOM brings to the sport at the moment.

By the way, does anyone know who owns the actual "Formula 1" brand, the FIA or FOM/CVC?

The F1 FORMULA 1 logo, FORMULA 1, FORMULA ONE, F1 STORE, F1, GRAND PRIX, the logo of this site (being the official website of Formula 1TM), the Sweeping Curves logo and related logos are trademarks of Formula One Licensing BV, a Formula One Group Company. All rights reserved.

Further reading here (I know, I know it's a Wikipedia link):
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Formula_One_Group

[xpensive]

Thanx Don, while I agree with your position on the rules, changing rules before the race, is Bill France running F1 now?

Anyway, I am totally convinced that this should have happened two years ago, hadn't MrM made the ultimate sacrifice falling on his sword. This was so important in itself that Montezuma and the others agreed to postpone the unavoidable.

But now MrM is long gone and while MrE is preparing for his three-digit birthday, nothing is stopping the teams from taking the entirety of the incomes from 2013, what's rightfully theirs, kicking CVC til kingdom come.

[Just_a_fan]

Everyone is acting like a 16 year old couple who argue every 5 minutes and threaten to break up all the time. Both sides need to compromise for the long term and accept their marriage.

Think of the children!

Why compromise with the profiteers? By 2013 MrE will be 90-something and the time has come to ditch the bloodsuckers and get F1 back to an affordable level for the visitors, the way money has led F1 to races in Asian dictatorships with half-empty grandstands rather than tracks with a serious audience is outrageous.

Hear hear!

[Giblet]

I'm saying there needs to be some kind of solidarity between the commercial and sporting side, however they do it. I completely agree with X's post, but nobody seems to have an eye on the future at the same time. They can't keep wasting time and peacocking around with breakaway/takeover threats every few years. It's a boy cried wolf thing, nobody, especially sponsors who make the sport go around want anything other than stability and TV time.

[xpensive]

But that's just the point Gib, the sporting and commercial sides should never have been separated the way they were, when the commercial rights were more or less given to MrE for him to sell away at his leisure to sheer profiteers like CVC.

If Montezuma, Ron, Norb and the Red Bull König can stick together and ignore the 2013 Concord agreement, they can do their own thing and CVC will stand empty handed. The rest of the teams are just peanuts, why they will go with the big boys.

The FIA will not necessarily have anything to do with the outcome, they will be obliged to sanction whatever.

[Rob01]

The EU demanded that the two sides be seperate. Max gave them what they wanted which turned out to be a 100 year deal that assured the two sides stay seperate. And from what I am reading the FIA has the right to refuse a potential new owner on the commercial side. The same guy that put in the 100 deal also put in a DonKIng clause. That Max thought of everything.

[xpensive]

The EU demanded that the two sides be seperate. Max gave them what they wanted which turned out to be a 100 year deal that assured the two sides stay seperate. And from what I am reading the FIA has the right to refuse a potential new owner on the commercial side. The same guy that put in the 100 deal also put in a DonKIng clause. That Max thought of everything.

That EU horsestory is just that, it has never been a problem for the IOC?

But what do you know, as it happened MrM could not find a better candidate than his old buddy MrE? MrM never xecuted any right to refuse a new owner, why MrE made out like a bandit and became one of the richest men in the UK.

[donskar]

F1 is like an old, crumbling monarchial line, finally succumbing to back-stabbing politics, corruption and inbreeding. It's time for a change. Overthrow the senile king and his drooling princes and dumb-blond princesses and bring in democracy and intelligent management. And tell the Queen to lay off the stable boy. Or is it the King and the stable boy?

[Ciro Pabón]

[xpensive]

If not for one Tony George with his somewhat egocentric ambitions, there's no telling where the old CART series had been today. The way they operated in their 90's heyday, no way in the world they would have given away 50% of their money.

[Just_a_fan]

F1 is like an old, crumbling monarchial line, finally succumbing to back-stabbing politics, corruption and inbreeding. It's time for a change. Overthrow the senile king and his drooling princes and dumb-blond princesses and bring in democracy and intelligent management. And tell the Queen to lay off the stable boy. Or is it the King and the stable boy?

You make it sound like this is all new stuff. These battles have been going on for the best part of half of F1's existence. Don't forget the "FISA/FOCA wars" of the early 80s...

Oh, and democracy is oversold - all too often it just results in other forms of corruption and nepotism. The self-styled "greatest democracy on Earth" is full of "back-stabbing politics, corruption and inbreeding" for example...they can't even add up the votes properly! "To chad or not to chad, that is the question!"

And "intelligent management" is getting very close to oxymoron these days...

[donskar]

F1 is like an old, crumbling monarchial line, finally succumbing to back-stabbing politics, corruption and inbreeding. It's time for a change. Overthrow the senile king and his drooling princes and dumb-blond princesses and bring in democracy and intelligent management. And tell the Queen to lay off the stable boy. Or is it the King and the stable boy?

You make it sound like this is all new stuff. These battles have been going on for the best part of half of F1's existence. Don't forget the "FISA/FOCA wars" of the early 80s...

Oh, and democracy is oversold - all too often it just results in other forms of corruption and nepotism. The self-styled "greatest democracy on Earth" is full of "back-stabbing politics, corruption and inbreeding" for example...they can't even add up the votes properly! "To chad or not to chad, that is the question!"

And "intelligent management" is getting very close to oxymoron these days...

I know it's not "new stuff" -- I've followed F1 since the 60's. Corruption takes a long time to erode an organization.