JANUARY 28, 2005

Another twist in the F1 political game

Unless Jean Todt is feeling particularly charitable and has time to waste, Max Mosley will today have a meeting by himself at the Heathrow Hilton. The nine other teams have all said that they are not intending to attend because they want to wait before discussing regulations changes for the longterm future.

Unless Jean Todt is feeling particularly charitable and has time to waste, Max Mosley will today have a meeting by himself at the Heathrow Hilton. The nine other teams have all said that they are not intending to attend because they want to wait before discussing regulations changes for the longterm future until market research reveals what the public wants to see. Mosley asked for the market research to be done.

Mosley will probably take the opportunity to discuss the ongoing political situation in Formula 1 with any members of the press who happen to be loitering around at the Heathrow Hilton at two thirty this afternoon. In a letter to the teams outlining points for discussion at the meeting Mosley said that the meeting was necessary to start discussions about 2008 which, the FIA president wrote, is "the earliest year for which the FIA is free to implement change".

We hear that some of the teams do not agree with Mosley's assessment of his powers in relation to rule-making in 2008 and that they have now pointed out to Mosley that in the Concorde Agreement there are set procedures for the way in which there can be discussions about the future, even if these are beyond the end of the Concorde Agreement.

As the Concorde Agreement is a confidential document and the F1 media is not allowed to see it, it is difficult to know the whys and wherefores of the case but we hear that there is a clause which specifies that technical and sporting regulation changes which are proposed during the term of the Concorde Agreement, have to go through the F1 Commission and cannot simply be created by the FIA without consultation with the commission members.

If this is the case, the FIA does not have the freedom to implement change until the end of 2007. This, of course, would be too late for the 2008 season.