by Max Mosley
Although the war itself was really about stopping the FIA and car manufacturers taking control of Formula One, the immediate battleground was the proposed ban on the aerodynamically important skirts. We had looked at the possibility of getting an injunction against the FIA to stop FISA (which, as already noted, was technically a FIA commission) banning the skirts on the grounds that a ban taking effect the following year (1981) did not provide the required two years’ notice and would breach the stability rules. French lawyers, however, advised that the courts would be unlikely to agree because of a letter signed by most of the drivers asking for the ban to reduce cornering speeds for safety reasons. The problem for us was that the ban would reduce the cornering speeds of the British cars more than Ferrari or Alfa Romeo because the V8 Cosworth engine allowed a much better ground effect than the flat 12 Ferrari and Alfa Romeo engines. The ‘grandis’ would be giving up much less than us, so we proposed changes to the tyres that would affect all teams equally.
With the legal route in France seemingly blocked we turned to England, but the judge would not let us serve proceedings outside the jurisdiction of the English courts. He decided the French courts were the correct forum; otherwise, you might get an Italian team suing in Italy or a Japanese team suing in Japan with potentially contradictory results. The judge said with impeccable logic that the most efficient approach was to sue the FIA where it was based, in France. This was not what we wanted to hear because we now knew the French courts would probably accept the safety argument.
We had a number of allies among the FIA delegates at Lagonissi, one of whom, Ron Frost from New Zealand, suggested we come to the dinner that evening hosted by the Greek club. There was a strong desire for peace within the FIA and the climate was improving. But just as we were about to get on the bus, we learned that we had lost our position on the FISA Executive with immediate effect. We promptly cancelled our attendance at the dinner and told everyone it was clear we had to continue to operate outside FIA structures and would now return to London.
After we left, some delegates who were sympathetic to our complaints about rule stability put pressure on Balestre. As result, the FIA representatives for the USA, Germany and New Zealand were deputed by the FISA Executive Committee to meet us together with a senior sponsors’ representative, Aleardo Buzzi, and seek a solution. Buzzi worked for Philip Morris, who sponsored both Ferrari and FOCA’s McLaren using its Marlboro brand. After an appropriate show of reluctance, Bernie and I arranged to meet them in Lausanne.
Agreement was reached with this group on 6 June 1980. We signed a document which gave all sporting power to the FISA F1 Commission, with three representatives each for FOCA and FISA, two sponsors, three organisers and a drivers’ representative. FISA’s Executive Committee could send a decision back to the commission if it disagreed but could not change it, while commercial matters in Formula One were wholly reserved for the teams. We agreed to drop legal action, pay the fines and abide by a tribunal’s judgment on the status of the recent ‘pirate’ Spanish Grand Prix.
It was essentially everything we wanted. We knew Balestre would not like it, so on the drive from Lausanne back to Geneva airport we decided to try to make it a fait accompli. In those days there was a telex room in the airport for businessmen to send urgent messages. We settled in there and had the entire agreement transcribed on to a telex tape and transmitted to all the members of FISA’s Executive Committee, all the Grand Prix organisers and all the teams.
By the time it went out, Balestre was already in bed. When Michel Boeri, president of the Monaco club, received it he promptly warned Marco. Sure enough, at 4am, Marco got a call from Balestre, who used to make up for his early bedtime by rising at dawn or before. ‘You have one minute to wake up,’ he told Marco, ‘then we must talk.’ Balestre was furious. He said (with some justification) that the FIA negotiators had gone beyond their mandate and he was determined to tear up the agreement.
The next race was the French Grand Prix on 29 June, the most important on the calendar for Balestre as president of the French Federation. We took advice on whether we could disrupt it by sending only two cars. This would have accorded with the letter of our contract, but the French lawyers advised that we might well lose the resulting litigation because the quarrel would be seen as us resisting a safety measure requested by the drivers. But the rumour of a possible boycott reached Balestre and, to calm things, he called for a round table the day after the race to discuss all technical problems including cornering speeds and the proposed ban on skirts.
At the meeting, we once again argued that reducing tyre performance was the fairest way to reduce cornering speeds because it would be the same for all cars. By contrast, a skirt ban would affect the cars with flat 12 engines less than those using the Cosworth V8 and would therefore disadvantage our teams. The round table decided the discussion should go to a further technical commission meeting from which, in the event, nothing useful emerged. Our moral position was not helped a month later when Patrick Depailler was killed testing his Alfa Romeo at Hockenheim. The cause of the accident was said to be suspension failure, but there was a suspicion that a skirt had stuck in the up position, causing a loss of downforce (and hence grip) that took him by surprise.
Because Balestre’s political control of FISA was so strong, we turned increasingly to the law and, by August 1980, Bernie was able to tell a FOCA meeting that we had five different pieces of litigation underway. As the weeks went by, we began to think that a breakaway series, or at least a credible threat of it, would probably be the most effective way to break the deadlock. We started contacting race organisers to build up a calendar for a FOCA Formula One Championship and putting together sporting and technical rules (largely copied from the FISA versions). Bernie already had contracts with most of the Formula One race promoters and many of them were sympathetic.
In October 1980, ten race promoters signed an undertaking that if no agreement were reached between Balestre and us, they would honour their contracts and their races would be run ‘with or without the approval of FISA’. Finally, at the beginning of November 1980 we were ready to announce the World Federation of Motor Sport, with its own World Professional Drivers’ Championship, and put out a press release to the world’s media.
Balestre’s response was to threaten sanctions against any circuit that ran a race without FISA’s consent. FISA, he said, would stop the circuit running any other form of motor sport and he had the power to do this under the International Sporting Code. A ban would not necessarily be a problem for a street circuit such as Long Beach (although there would be no support races), but would be catastrophic for a permanent circuit that needed to run lesser motor sport events all year round in order to be financially viable. But the threat had major legal implications that Balestre probably didn’t foresee. In the medium term, we could probably have claimed it was a breach of European competition law, something we were very focused on, but in the short term we could immediately sue the FIA for interference with contractual relations on the basis of our existing contracts with race promoters.
We were now on much stronger legal ground. Bernie’s Formula One race contracts were all with FOCA’s UK entity and governed by English law; there was no safety argument and no need to go to the French courts. We could go straight to the English High Court. There was only one problem: the lawyers pointed out that we could not ask for an injunction to stop FISA interfering with our contracts for races that were part of the FIA Formula One World Championship and simultaneously set up our own alternative world championship. Our own competition would mean we were not going to compete in their championship and our contracts would be nugatory. It was either or. On 21 November, within a month of setting up the World Federation of Motor Sport, we announced at a press conference in the Crillon next door to the FIA that we were not going to proceed with it. We would simply enforce our existing contracts and race under the rules we had signed up to; namely, the rules with no ban on skirts.
/> There was a brief moment of euphoria in FISA’s camp and the pro-Balestre sections of the press – they thought we had capitulated and he’d won. Then they discovered we had obtained injunctions against the FIA and each individual member of FISA’s Executive Committee, restraining them from interfering with our contracts. Furthermore, we had leave to serve the proceedings abroad, outside the jurisdiction of the English courts. The injunctions involved blood-curdling official threats of fines, imprisonment and sequestration. Ignoring an injunction of the English High Court is a very serious matter in the UK. This greatly alarmed many FISA World Council members. All except Michel Boeri of Monaco started to refuse any engagement in the UK for fear of what might happen should they set foot there.
Now we were apparently in a strong position. We had the teams (except Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Renault), we had draconian injunctions against the FIA and all the individual members of FISA’s World Council and we had upwards of ten races on our calendar, all of which could respond to any threat from the governing body by saying they had a contract with us and therefore no choice but to run their event. But there was a major problem, albeit hidden. The sponsors were getting nervous. Big international companies like Philip Morris (Marlboro) and Goodyear did not want to be associated with a ‘pirate’ championship or any sort of revolt against the established order. Main boards were becoming involved and, however sympathetic those responsible for the racing budget might be, they warned that if it came to it, they would not be able to help us.
The money had already stopped flowing and with our teams entirely dependent on finance from sponsors, we were going to have trouble getting through the winter, never mind going racing next season. Then, in December 1980, Goodyear announced their withdrawal from Formula One. Michelin promptly declared that Formula One would not be without tyres but, as a French company very much closer to Balestre than to us, this was anything but comforting. The situation was becoming desperate.
13
THE CONCORDE AGREEMENT
Against this background, on 16 January 1981 Colin Chapman, the head of the Lotus car company as well as the Lotus team, Teddy Mayer, then head of McLaren, and I went to the Hahnenkamm downhill ski race in Austria. There had always been a lot of crossover between Formula One and ski racing, and friends in Austrian ski circles arranged a visit each year. We also got in a bit of skiing ourselves and even a bit of light-hearted racing, plus the regular wild party in The Londoner pub after the big race. Teddy was a very accomplished skier and former instructor and his wife Sally, who came too, was a former American junior champion. Colin was less skilled but what he lacked in ability he would make up for in determination and a love of speed. After each run he would appear a short time behind everyone else, covered in snow from his falls but loving every minute of it.
In the dining room of our small hotel near Kitzbühel was a mural showing two men painting a cow. Colin asked the waitress what was going on and she explained that in the Middle Ages, a nearby town had been under siege and had run out of food. Surrender was imminent but they had one cow left and each day they would paint it a different colour and parade it where the besieging army could see it, to give the impression they had plenty of cows.
‘That’s it!’ exclaimed Colin. ‘We must put on a race even though we’ve got no money.’ FISA had just been forced to postpone the Argentine Grand Prix, the first race of the 1981 season (Argentina were FIA loyalists), so if we could put on a race when they demonstrably couldn’t, the effect would be significant. We all went up to my room in a state of enthusiasm for Colin’s idea and, sitting on the bed, called Bernie. I explained about painting the cow and what we needed to do. There was a short silence, then Bernie replied: ‘You’re all pissed.’ This was partly true but he saw the point and eventually agreed that we must somehow put on a race despite almost all the teams being broke.
The following week, ever attuned to the political situation and the possibility of extracting an advantage for his company, Enzo Ferrari invited everyone to Modena. Despite all our conflicts, relations with Renault and Alfa Romeo had remained excellent on a personal level. Likewise with Enzo Ferrari, for whom everyone had great respect as the elder statesman of Formula One. The result of the discussions was the Modena Agreement. Much of what emerged from Modena was similar to the Lausanne Agreement of the previous summer (chapter 12), but instead of three members of FISA and three from FOCA the proposal was now equal representation on the F1 Commission for FOCA and the manufacturers, a sponsor from each side and only one FISA representative. The equal representation for the manufacturers came from a discussion shortly before the Modena meeting between Marco and Teddy Mayer arranged by Aleardo Buzzi, the senior executive of Philip Morris who had been at our Lausanne meeting the previous summer as sponsor of both Ferrari and McLaren.
The Modena Agreement was similar to the terms Balestre had refused the previous summer, at least as far as the powers of the F1 Commission and its relationship with his World Council were concerned, but there was now even less representation for FISA in the commission. It maintained the Lausanne position that they controlled the sport but commercial matters were strictly the teams’ domain. The agreement, which was to be submitted to FISA, was announced on 20 January, just before all their main players were due to assemble in Monaco for the Monte Carlo Rally.
This put Balestre under intense pressure. If the Modena Agreement were accepted, it would be a defeat for him; but with every team including Ferrari in agreement, he was becoming isolated. Without the support of Ferrari and the major manufacturers, Balestre realised he was at risk of losing control. However, what he didn’t know was that the financial position of the British teams was now so desperate he only had to wait and he would be able to dictate his terms, at least to us. We were very close to collapse.
This made it all the more important for us to put on the South African Grand Prix because the local organiser had a FOCA contract and had sided with us. The race was originally scheduled for 7 February and, encouraged by us, the South Africans had refused an attempt by FISA to postpone it until April along with the Argentinian race.
But Goodyear’s withdrawal meant we had no tyres. They were no longer willing to supply, not even old stock, and there was no chance Michelin would step in without Balestre’s approval. By pure luck, Bernie had a warehouse full of old Avon tyres left over from a race series he had been running in addition to his Formula One activities. The 1981 South African Grand Prix duly took place on 7 February, with all the teams running on Bernie’s old tyres, and was won by Carlos Reutemann. FISA declared it a ‘formula libre’ race and it barely got a mention in the French motor racing press. The coverage of the FOCA–FISA conflict in the French and UK media was rather like the difference between the history books used in English and French schools – theirs contain battles no English child has ever heard of and vice versa, depending on who won in each case.
The fact that we could put on a race and FISA could not sent a clear message that did not escape Balestre or the main boards of the manufacturers. The 1981 Argentine Grand Prix had been scheduled for 11 January but had not been on the FOCA calendar, so none of our cars were prepared to run there. To overcome this, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Renault had said they would each run three cars, but the logistical problems were too great and they had to ask FISA to postpone it. A new date was fixed, 12 April, but the forced date change was a major setback for FISA, resulting in pressure on the manufacturers’ teams from their sponsors as well as their own main boards. The increasingly strong message was: get this sorted out. When the ‘pirate’ South African Grand Prix was shown on television in Europe and elsewhere, the pressure on Balestre increased further.
Worse, from the point of view of FISA and the three manufacturers, the next race on the FIA calendar after South Africa was Long Beach in California. Chris Pook, the Long Beach organiser, had made it clear he would respect his contract with us and put on a race. The manufacturers’ teams could participate if they w
ished but, if necessary, he would run the race just for our teams. Then Renault told Balestre they would have to run in California because of their American subsidiary. The reality was that we would probably not have been able to race in California for lack of money but, like the besieging army in Austria that was shown a different cow each day, neither FISA nor the manufacturers realised what desperate straits we were in. FISA started to lose its nerve.
As the pressure mounted, Balestre blinked first. Above all, he didn’t want Ferrari to take the credit for a deal or the Modena Agreement to become a fait accompli. If there was to be an agreement, he wanted it to be his and for it to be named after the Place de la Concorde where the FIA had its headquarters, not Ferrari’s home base. He sent out a telex saying the Modena Agreement was not valid, but he also sought a meeting and agreed to join Bernie and me for breakfast at the Crillon. He was ready to concede some vital points and was prepared to abandon his original demand that all commercial aspects of Formula One should be in the governing body’s hands. This meant the teams (i.e. Bernie) could deal with the money, at least for the next three or four years.
The result was the Concorde Agreement, negotiated over three weeks by Ferrari’s Marco Piccinini and me with the assistance of Ronnie Austin, a Paris-based English lawyer retained by Renault. To keep the negotiations away from Balestre, we met in the Cercle National des Armées, which is a centre for serving military officers, holders of the Légion d’honneur and elite civil servants, the idea being that even if he found out where we were, he wouldn’t dare enter the building given his questionable war record. Ferrari used to joke that Marco and I were the parents of the Concorde Agreement ‘but no one knows which one is the father and which the mother’ – very Italian. Marco was later an outstanding deputy president (sport) supporting me at the FIA. More recently, he became Monaco’s minister of finance.
