Mark Hughes

WITH Max Mosley expected to confirm later this week that he will not stand for re-election as president of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body, questions are now being posed over the future of his long-time partner in Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone, commercial ringmaster of the sport for the past 30 years.

Like Mosley, Ecclestone is reluctant to go, but increasing pressure from a variety of sources is beginning to form serious cracks in their previous overwhelming power base. Ecclestone’s controversial Hitler comments in a recent interview last week have hastened the pressure on him to quit.

Ecclestone, inset, was controversially awarded the commercial rights to F1 by the FIA under Mosley’s stewardship in 2001 for 100 years. He in turn sold these rights to the private equity firm CVC in 2006 and remained on board as the sport’s de facto commercial boss. However, Ecclestone has been bypassed in recent negotiations between the teams and CVC, whose management has been increasingly hands-on since the dissident eight teams that comprise Fota announced three weeks ago that they intended to form a breakaway championship, a move that would potentially render CVC’s $3 billion investment to date worthless.

Without the eight teams — 80% of the current grid — the private equity company is in danger of owning the rights to something with not sufficient teams to be a credible championship. The teams have been using their unified position and their contractual situation to negotiate better terms, backing that up with the threat of the breakaway championship. The announcement of that championship — at Silverstone three weeks ago — triggered CVC into a more direct approach.

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It was their pressure, exerted via Ecclestone, that led to Mosley agreeing to the teams’ terms in principle, one of which was that Mosley would not stand for re-election in October. Mosley’s subsequent apparent about-turn only a day later displeased CVC immensely, as they viewed it as a very serious threat to their investment.

Mosley’s subsequent power games with the teams has brought the realisation that he, and not the teams, is the source of CVC’s problem. The long-established hand-in-glove style of Mosley and Ecclestone, as well as Ecclestone’s Hitler comments, have led CVC to question whether they would be best served by relying on them to represent their interests.

The teams are now on the verge of a commercial agreement with CVC to remain in F1 for the remainder of CVC’s contract, conditional upon governance terms, including the non-standing of Mosley, being met.

Ecclestone, who will be 79 in October, is determined to retain his place in the commercial driving seat, but there are whispers that he will be asked by CVC to stand down at the end of this year. His rumoured replacement is his friend and partner in QPR football club Flavio Briatore, 59 and currently team principal of the Renault team. In his role as commercial director of Fota, Briatore has played a critical bridge-building role between the teams and CVC in recent weeks.

Briatore has much of Ecclestone’s business nous but is much more of a showman. He has long bemoaned how little F1 does for its fans and the sport under his influence would feature rather more razzmatazz. He has been a huge advocate of cost controls in F1 and in this respect his philosophy is very much of the moment.

Ecclestone and Mosley have guided F1 for the past two decades and the prospect of them stepping down would signal the end of an era. But their divide-and-conquer modus operandi seems finally to have met its match in the form of a united front from the teams.

Although the teams are as yet uncertain as to what twists and turns might still lie between where they are now and a final agreement, F1 stands on the verge of a less entrepreneurial, more managerial and transparent future.