FEBRUARY 5, 1996
Teams get more power with new Concorde Agreement
FIA President Max Mosley has revealed that the new Concorde Agreement, which comes into force on January 1, 1997, will give the Formula 1 teams a lot more say in changes to the technical regulations - if they can agree among themselves.
The Concorde Agreement is a legal document - agreed to by the teams and the governing body - which dictates how Grand Prix racing is run. It dates back to March, 1981.
The change has come about because the FIA wants to slow down the speed of progress in F1, because whenever lap times reduce, the number of dangerous corners on circuits increases. The FIA says that currently it has to make changes every year. These are unpopular with the teams, because they mean building new cars.
According to Mosley, the teams say that it takes 3500 drawings to produce a new F1 car, and there is very little carry-over in design from year to year. This makes it a very expensive and time-consuming, and it is necessary to do most of the 3500 drawings needed for an F1 car every year.
To overcome the problem, the FIA has thrown the problem back at the teams, asking the Technical Working Group - made up of F1 engineers - to come up with ways of reducing speeds without forcing teams to build new cars.
"In the 1997 Concorde Agreement, if the FIA thinks cars are getting too fast, we will give teams three months to come up with design changes," says Mosley. "If they do not, the FIA will do it instead."
The Technical Working Group is currently looking at ways to reduce the $500,000 a year needed for F1 brake systems, with the possibility of a return to steel brakes or even the appointment of a single brake system supplier for F1.