OCTOBER 17, 2002

Bernie and CART

The French motorsport magazine Autohebdo has come up with an interesting theory about why Bernie Ecclestone was meeting with CART bosses Gerry Forsythe and Chris Pook recently.

Bernie Ecclestone, Monaco GP 2002
© The Cahier Archive

The French motorsport magazine AUTOHEBDO has come up with an interesting theory about why Bernie Ecclestone was meeting with CART bosses Gerry Forsythe and Chris Pook recently. According to the magazine the meeting was a discussion over whether or not Ecclestone would buy control of CART. The logic behind this move is that if Bernie owned the US series he would then not have to worry so much about the automobile manufacturers planning their own championship as he would simply rename CART as the Formula 1 World Championship in 2008.

This does not seem a very likely scenario as Ecclestone is smart enough to know that splitting the World Championship into two competing series would not be a good idea. According to AUTOHEBDO, however, Ecclestone has proposed buying 51% of the shares of the business, leaving 25% with Forsythe and the remainder with the other partners.