A Grand Prix for Lawyers - June 19, 2009

By Forrest Bond - RaceFax.com

The FIA was clearly as surprised as anyone by the timing, if not the substance, of the midnight FOTA announcement of a breakaway series, and it has taken them a good part of the day to regain some semblance of balance.

To begin the day, Max Mosley's organization issued a press release which began with a statement no one was prepared to believe -- that it was "disappointed but not surprised" -- and then quickly rocketed further downhill.

There followed the claim that "elements within FOTA have sought this outcome throughout the prolonged period of negotiation and have not engaged in the discussions in good faith." Even the history of the negotiations the FIA released the previous day, tortured reality that it was, failed to support the contention.

Maintaining, again, that FOTA was attempting to "dictate the rules of Formula 1" -- in other words, mounting an attack on the FIA, rather than on Mosley's iron- and ham-fisted method of ruling the sport -- the release reconfirmed that the 2010 entry period will expire at midnight tonight, and that the final entry list would be announced on Saturday.

After arriving at the Silverstone circuit, Mosley immediately walked the short distance between the FIA motorhome and the steel-gray coach in which Bernie Ecclestone holds court, and there the two remained for the morning.

As morning gave way to afternoon, Mosley had another press release issued, and it amounted to a declaration of war. In its entirety, it stated that, "The FIA’s lawyers have now examined the FOTA threat to begin a breakaway series. The actions of FOTA as a whole, and Ferrari in particular, amount to serious violations of law, including willful interference with contractual relations, direct breaches of Ferrari's legal obligations, and a grave violation of competition law. The FIA will be issuing legal proceedings without delay. Preparations for the 2010 FIA Formula 1 World Championship continue, but publication of the final 2010 entry list will be put on hold while the FIA asserts its legal rights."

There are other, obvious reasons for delaying the entry list's publication, but one thing was clear: if the FIA formally accepts any additional entries, it would incur legal obligations if it later became necessary to remove those new teams to make way for a return of the FOTA 8. That alone probably dictated delaying publishing of the 'final' list.

Another possibility is that Mosley has, after last night's announcement, suddenly found himself short of hopefuls. In between the issuance of the two bulletins, the Italian N. Technology team told Autosport.com it had withdrawn its entry, and the paddock was rife with rumors that there had been many other defections from the FIA's reserve list of entrants. Force India remained on the list of previously accepted entries, but team owner Vijay Mallya waffled in an Autosport.com interview, saying he remained an entrant "as of now," and that he was awaiting "further developments over the weekend."

Now that we're down to lawsuits, the unfolding process is obviously going to take longer than the running of the British Grand Prix, an event which has now been completely upstaged.

What seems beyond arguing is that the fight between the FOTA teams and Mosley has become bitterly personal. Resolution may come from the courts -- though only a fool would predict the outcome(s) there -- but if a solution comes in time to avert dueling series, it will evidently require Mosley to step down, and all his 2010 rules to be reversed.

In practical terms, there is no mechanism by which Mosley can be forcibly removed (a meeting of the FIA General Assembly, as was held after his sexual preferences were exposed, would be required), and while some expect Mosley eventually to resign 'for the good of the sport,' there is no precedent in his personal history to suggest that will happen. Further, it is very difficult to see how he could manage a face-saving exit.

There are further rumors that Ferrari and Fiat chairman Luca di Montezemolo will attend Wednesday's meeting of the World Motor Sport Council, and call for a vote of no confidence. That such a move would be successful is doubtful in the extreme, but even if a no-confidence vote were obtained, Mosley could simply ignore it, citing the need to have the issues resolved in court, and to resist the team owners' attempt to seize power from the FIA.

The investors in CVC's Fund IV, which holds the 100-year lease on Formula 1's commercial rights, must be approaching cardiac arrest this morning. While substantial profit-taking has occurred, the real money was presumably in being able to either continue to profit long term after the entity's indebtedness is paid off or through eventually selling the rights leasehold. If FOTA ultimately comes back into the FIA series for 2010, it is difficult to believe it will be on the commercial terms that they had all but agreed with CVC's Ecclestone in recent days. In the alternative -- with a rival series -- those rights will be worth far less than anyone at CVC could have envisioned in their worst nightmares even a month ago, if they then have any real value at all. Because CVC/Ecclestone stand to lose either way, it is impossible to predict what Ecclestone is going to do, and beyond that, his power is nothing compared to what it once was.

A resolution that would bring the FOTA teams back into the Formula 1 fold may eventually be in the offing, but it will not come quickly, and it is at best difficult to see circumstances that at any time could bring that about.