F1 Future Secure With New Concorde Agreement
The future of F1 has finally been secured after the sport’s governing body the FIA and 12 teams signed a new Concorde Agreement which sets out how F1 is run and its revenues distributed.
The agreement, which runs until the end of 2012, brings to a close months of wrangling with the FIA heralding the signing as ‘a renewed period of stability’ for F1.
It added that the document features a ‘slightly revised set of stable sporting and technical regulations’.
The lack of a new Concorde deal had been a key sticking point during disagreements between the FIA and the teams’ representative body FOTA earlier this season.
However, the signing of the new agreement heralds a final resolution to the political rows that have destabilised the sport throughout 2009.
An FIA statement on Saturday read: ‘Following approval by the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC), late last night FIA President Max Mosley signed the 2009 Concorde Agreement, heralding a renewed period of stability for the FIA Formula One World Championship.
‘The WMSC has also approved a slightly revised set of stable Sporting and Technical Regulations (to apply from the 2010 Championship onwards), which have been agreed by the FIA and the Teams and which will be published on the FIA’s website.
The new Concorde Agreement, which runs until 31 December 2012, provides for a continuation of the procedures in the 1998 Concorde Agreement, with decisions taken by working groups and commissions, upon which all teams have voting rights, before going to the WMSC for ratification.
The FIA statement also confirmed that a final agreement had been reached over the issue of cost-cutting along lines previously agreed.
‘In addition, as agreed in Paris on 24 June 2009, the Teams have entered into a resource restriction agreement, which aims to return expenditure to the levels that prevailed in the early 1990s,’ read the statement.
BMW Sauber, who this week confirmed they would pull out of F1 at the end of the season, are the only current team to have not signed the document, with new grand prix teams USF1, Campos Meta and Manor GP all doing so.
F1 was thrown into confusion in July when the eight teams in the rebel umbrella group FOTA were told they were not entered in the 2010 championship.
This contradicted an announcement by the FIA’s world council on 24th June which listed McLaren, Ferrari, Renault, BMW, Toyota, Brawn, Red Bull and Toro Rosso as confirmed entries after Max Mosley, president of F1’s governing body the FIA, had reached a compromise deal with FOTA chairman and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo and Ecclestone.
As part of that agreement, the outline of next year’s rules was set, the teams agreed to commit to F1 until 2012, Mosley’s plan for a £40m budget cap was replaced with an agreement to reduce costs to ‘mid-1990s levels’ by FOTA’s methods and the FIA president agreed not to stand again for the governing body’s presidence in October’s elections.
