JANUARY 16, 2003
The calm after the storm
The Formula 1 team bosses did not make a big issue about the FIA's announcements on Wednesday with only a couple making any public statements about the biggest upset in the F1 rules for more than a decade. But today it is expected that we will hear the first reactions of the bigger teams.
There remains a possibility that a team boss or two might try to go to arbitration but that step would really be too little too late and there is no obvious argument as to why the FIA cannot do what it has done. As the F1 rebels found in 1981-82 during the last conflict between the F1 teams and the governing body, the federation has a great deal of power when it wants to have it.
The big question now is to what extent the balance of power in the sport has shifted. The big hurdle ahead is the negotiation of a new Concorde Agreement. In recent weeks the teams have learned that there is little on offer from the planned GPWC that is not available from the Formula One organization and anyone who is still clinging to the idea of a new series is doing so because it gives them a bargaining position with Ecclestone rather than because there is any serious threat.