Mosley blasts F1 teams for wasting money

[Wizzo]

Max Mosley, the FIA president, has criticised formula one teams for failing to save money at a time when they are arguing for a bigger slice of the sport's $800m (£400m) annual commercial rights income, distributed by Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management group.

In a robust letter sent last week to all the team principals, and leaked to the Guardian, Mosley claims that "formula one's vast profits are currently being wasted on pointless exercises for the private entertainment of the teams' engineers. As a result, several independent teams are losing money when they should be making a profit, while car manufacturers are forced to spend excessively. This is the problem which needs to be addressed."

He added: "If it did not waste money on pointless, hidden and duplicated technology, formula one would be an immensely profitable business. Each [team] would be a valuable franchise. Instead it is living on subsidies from the car industry and hand-outs from friendly billionaires."

This last remark is seen by many as a referring not only to Mansour Ojjeh, the TAG billionaire who owns 15% of McLaren, but also to the Indian entrepreneur Vijay Mallya, who recently paid $80m to buy the Spyker team which started life as Jordan before being sold to Alex Shnaider's Midland Group at the start of 2005.

The top 10 teams in the constructors' championship share just 50% of Ecclestone's commercial rights purse, with the company controlled by the 76-year-old taking the remainder.

Although no team principal was available for comment last night, many believe the easiest way of expanding the teams' commercial viability is for Ecclestone to open his wallet to grant a bigger share to the teams. They regard Mosley's intervention as a distraction. Yet the FIA president remains unyielding. "Until the basic problem of costs has been resolved, time should not be wasted discussing how the money is to be distributed," he said.

[Alianora La Canta]

Until the Concorde Agreement is sorted, Max might as well shout at the team principals to do a tap dance. Without that agreement, they don't even have to compete in F1 next year, because the March 2006 agreement was subject to the Concorde Agreement being signed. Unless Max wants to drive teams away, then he needs to help the teams sort out the Concorde Agreement and therefore do F1. Then he can get them to do F1 on the cheap.

[cosworth151]

How about this: The major stick-&-ball sports leagues over here invert the draft of incoming players. When they have their college draft, the team with the worst record gets the first pick, and so on until the best team picks last. This is done to help create parity. Why not let the smaller teams get the lion's share of the money? This would be like the "fighting fund" that was promised a few years ago but never quite came into being.

[Scott]

Waste of money??  How about having to pay a ridiculously incredible fine of $100m??  If I was Ron, I'd pay it in pennies - it would be worth the trouble of getting the 5-6 tons of copper all the way to Paris (plus there is no currency exchange in coin - it'd be fun to watch the FIA try to turn it into actual money).

[rmassart]

How about this: The major stick-&-ball sports leagues over here invert the draft of incoming players. When they have their college draft, the team with the worst record gets the first pick, and so on until the best team picks last. This is done to help create parity. Why not let the smaller teams get the lion's share of the money? This would be like the "fighting fund" that was promised a few years ago but never quite came into being.

This is an interesting idea in principle, but in practice would simply result in teams pulling into the pits after one lap with "gear box problems" in the latter races in order to avoid getting points.  In effect you would be rewarding failure. It would work with drivers though (ie worst team gets best driver) and that would be interesting. But imagine the legal side of forcing a driver to drive for a certain team would be impossible - unless the drivers contracts are directly with Bernie rather than a specific team, he he.

How does that work in Baseball? What happens if the latest californian hotshot from college doesn't want to go and live New York?

[SennaMan]

Max MOSLEY is a cunning old dog who knows if he blasts F1 teams, Jackie STEWART, the British Government, uncle Tom Cobley and all, he will shift the scrutiny away from his dysfunctional FIA and their recent indefensible actions.

Don't let his machinations divert us from seriously questioning the relevance of the FIA's autocratic structure in this Third Millenium.   

[Steven Roy]

There have been cases where someone didn't want to go to the team they were drafted to.  The most famous one I am aware of is John Elway who absolutely refused to go to the team that drafted him(can't remember who) and went to the Denver Broncos and won two Superbowls.

[johnbull]

Sennaman. I agree. This is all a smoke screen.

[cosworth151]

If a player doesn't want to go to the team that drafted him, he can either try to work out a trade, play in another country or sit out a few years. Elway managed to talk the Baltimore (now Indy) Colts into trading him to Denver. Joe Theisman was drafted by Miami and went off to play for the Toronto Argonauts for a few years.

[Steven Roy]

Every time I see Theisman's name I think of that awful career ending injury he suffered.  I haven't seen it in years but I can still picture it.

[Steven Roy]

I wonder what odds I would have got on my 200th post here being about Joe Theisman.

[johnbull]

I'm getting quite sick of Max coming up with these bright ideas.

Has anybody ever told him that charity begins at home.

[Steven Roy]

Bernie??

[johnbull]

Between them both, they haven't half made a mess.

[SennaMan]

MOSLEY - shut the f**** up and give ya mouth a chance!