Mobile ESPN’s Shreyas Sharma analyses F1’s new soap-opera and the role big boys Ferrari are playing
Consider this - 1979 Formula 1 world champion Jody Scheckter wants to hand back his title. Why, you may ask? The South African is appalled by the state that the sport is in, courtesy Messrs Mosley and Ecclestone, and some Prancing Horses, gone-wild.
"The politics that have crept into Formula One, and the way that things are handled now, is very, very disappointing," said Scheckter. "Some of the regulations and some of the decisions that have been made by the FIA in the last years I think have been terrible. I think the sport's going through a dictatorship that is going wrong, as most dictatorships go wrong sooner or later," he added on F1-Live.com.
Scheckter's statements are indicative of the larger discontent that seems to be plaguing the pinnacle of motorsport, especially with the flaming row over the proposed 2010 voluntary budget cap and the consequent two-tier technical regulations.
What started out as a way to aid private teams to be competitive against big-budget manufacturers has turned into a battle of bloated egos, with the anti-cap lobby headed by that famous Italian stable, Scuderia Ferrari.
FIA president Mosley believes F1 can exist without Ferrari quite well. This despite the fact that the team has been virtually synonymous with F1 ever since that fateful Monte Carlo afternoon in 1950 when the championship began.
Seven hundred and eighty-one races, 16 constructors' titles, 15 drivers' titles and 209 race wins later, Ferrari are trying to use the pull-out threat to get their way once again. And when the arm-twisting didn't seem to work, they decided to approach the French courts to do it for them.
Formula One management boss Bernie Ecclestone, often accused of putting money over common sense, is playing the voice of reason in this row. He has gone to the extent of getting Mosley to agree to a waiver on the two-tier regulations, and of calling Ferrari ‘idiots', who want to break this ‘perfect marriage'.
Of course, his newly-found halo of a saint could be attributed to the fact that Ferrari alone are responsible for bringing in millions of viewers world-wide, and therefore, a Ferrari exit could make F1 lose a huge chunk of revenue. Hence, the ill-conceived emergency meeting at an airport hotel in London. It was bound to fail, wasn't it?
No amount of negotiations can cover up the fact that the FIA, as usual, has acted in a hasty manner, without considering what the reactions of the people who make F1 work, i.e. the teams and drivers, would be. Which team, in its right mind, would want a two-tier formula?
Formula 1 has always been about beating the best in a fair fight. The very basis of a ‘voluntary' budget cap defeats the purpose. Then comes the curious case of Enzo Ferrari's grand old team. It is no secret that Ferrari the car-manufacturer is driven by Ferrari the racing team, be it in terms of economics or engineering.
The aura surrounding the marque is largely thanks to its exclusivity and its racing pedigree. Will Ferrari racing in the Le Mans series or touring-cars will catch your imagination in the same way that a streak of red rushing along at 200 miles per hour inside the Monaco tunnel?
That a solution needs to be found is stating the obvious. But how do you bring the two warring parties to an agreement? Can the FIA be made to understand the risk it is running with its hard-line, dictatorial stance of imposing laws upon the sport rather than sounding out teams and taking their feedback?
Can Ferrari be made to understand that in these days of global economic recession, they might have to spare a thought for their competitors, to avoid a repeat of that shameful US Grand Prix in 2005 where 6 cars ran the whole race, since Michelin tyre-shod teams had pulled out for safety reasons? Can trigger-happy troubleshooter Ecclestone turn this one around?
Use your illusion, F1 fan... Picture this - Australian Grand Prix 2010, Melbourne. You have 13 teams, i.e. 26 cars on the grid. But there's no Rosso Corsa red, no yellow Renault, no Red Bull, no BMW and no strawberries-and-cream Toyota. Would you rather switch channels and watch the latest soap-opera?
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