> Sidelining teams was key to deal

FIA president Max Mosley and GPMA chairman Burkhard Goeschel believe that the key to resolving the long-running disputes over Formula 1’s governance was the decision to strip teams of most of their influence over the rule-making process.

The governing body and the manufacturer alliance announced on Wednesday that they had reached a “breakthrough” deal to supersede the current Concorde Agreement, which expires at the end of next year.

The new arrangement will transfer responsibility for discussing regulatory matters with the FIA from team management to board representatives of the car manufacturers.

Mosley and Goeschel both said that removing the teams from the equation was the catalyst for agreement on the strategic objectives F1 should be pursuing in the coming years.

These include the need to cut costs and develop energy-efficient technology that will support manufacturers’ R&D programmes while improving F1’s environmental credentials.

“We’ve completely changed the way we go about managing the rules,” said Mosley.

“That is the first change and the first effect that has come out of that is the attitude to the cutting-edge modern technology.

“It is such a big change it is almost quite difficult to grasp it.”

Mosley said the manufacturers brought a hard-headed approach to cost control and an open-minded approach to new technology in place of the vested interests and reflexive conservatism of the team bosses.

“I think it took five years to achieve because Professor Goeschel and I never sat down together before properly.

“The real problem was the discussions we had, generally speaking, were with the heads of the competition departments of the companies and not with the board.

“There is always a slight conflict there.

“The man who runs the competition department wants a big department with the maximum budget and maximum employees.

“Those on the board want the maximum success from motor sport with the minimum cost.

“It is really only the man on the board that is concerned with cost.

“Once we had started discussions at board level it became easy to move away from regulations questions, such as should the engine be three litres or 2.4 litres, into what we are trying to do, which is, run motor sport economically but also in a way which can be of more benefit to the car industry.”

Mosley stressed that teams will retain some influence but their role in future will be to help devise the best means of implementing an agenda predetermined by the FIA and the manufacturers.

“It would be a three-stage process,” he explained.

“One, you would get a decision at board level on what we are trying to do, for example, are we going to have a completely new engine in 2011 and if so what will that engine be?

“Then you have the technical experts from the major manufacturers who will flesh that policy out.

“Then you would have input from the technical experts at the teams on the details of the rules.

“They would work out how to achieve the predefined objectives.

“That’s a completely different process from what we’ve had.

“The row used to be between the teams about what the objective was and it would be complicated by the fact that everyone in the room would have a vested interest in some particular technology or device.

“On top of which they are all enormously conservative.”

Goeschel echoed Mosley’s views on the importance of changing the decision-making hierarchy.

“The main technology has to be defined at board level,” he said.

“Then it is fixed and realised at team level.

“If this means we bypass [say] Ron Dennis then so be it.”





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