Saturday, May 23rd, 2009...9:55 am
F1 may be saved afterall
The Ferrari team lost their court injunction against the FIA, and unsurprisingly so given that most court cases of this nature favour sporting institutions. Max Mosley is a very clever astute lawyer and knew that Ferrari would lose on the technicality of having not infringed on their rights by having a two tier championship - meaning Ferrari can still do whatever they want, they will just lose the championship. The court did concede however that Ferrari still retained the right to veto the rules set by the FIA where their rights are affected until 2012. As the FIA read aloud in response to the verdict, no participant is above the sport and rightly so.
To add weight against Ferrari’s quit threat, Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that should Ferrari quit before 2012, they may be liable to pay back all the money earned from the past few years championship winnings. I guess that’s one way to protect way to cover yourself from TV media dropping out or substantial contracts being overhauled because of Ferrari is not racing in F1.
New entrants in F1 have also appeared including a mixture of F3 and GP2 teams like Epsilon Euskadi, Campos Racing, iSport, Lola. The funny thing was when Ferrari did a media piece ridiculing the new entrants. However, Ferrari needs to remember that these teams could beat them, so why the ridicule. This is what F1 used to be like and manufacturers were just engine suppliers. I personally welcome these new teams, ridiculous names withstanding, and look forward to more racing action.
The meeting on Flavio Briatore’s Super Yacht will be interesting in terms of what they come up with like the redistribution of Ferrari’s revenue before going off to meet the FIA. The comments on the outcome of that meeting seem positive and that something will be worked out afterall.
I believe F1 has been saved and I believed this was always the case as I have been saying all along.
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