Listen to FIA president Jean Todt speak about the state of Formula 1, as a select group of us were permitted to do during a special press briefing in Paris last week, and one begins to wonder about the perfect circle of inertia that sometimes surrounds the sport he governs.
The F1 teams (well a certain proportion of them in any case) agree rules and commercial contracts, then complain the regulator and the commercial rights holder are ruining the category and not permitting them to function properly; the commercial rights holder blames the teams for being too greedy and having too much power, and criticises the direction of the category as defined by the regulations, but pockets the vast proportion of F1's revenues; while the FIA seems an impotent middle man - unable or unwilling to bash heads together and take control of the sport it regulates and once owned.
What role should the FIA take in shaping Formula 1, and what leadership has current president Jean Todt (in power since 2009) shown in trying to ensure the governing body's flagship motor racing product remains at the forefront of worldwide sporting excellence?
I'm not really sure how to answer that question. Todt is rarely visible or vocal at grands prix - not in the way his predecessor Max Mosley was. The Frenchman seems to take a hands-off approach to governing F1. Perhaps that is simply his style of presidency - taking a back seat in order to make more considered judgements.
"All in all I am prepared to be criticised and I am prepared learn from the criticism if they [the critics] bring me something," Todt says. "I think you can achieve much more by knowing confrontation, rather than by confrontation. If I can avoid it, I prefer to avoid it.
Todt took a hands-on approach to a Citroen DS/Virgin Racing press conference during London's Formula E finale © LAT |
"I love motorsport, but I feel in your life you have a lot of other things. Maybe I put more interest on the things that are not directly linked to F1.
"People may interpret that as me not being interested in F1, but that is not true. I am not only interested by F1."
That's probably because Formula 1 represents a mere fraction of the FIA's global responsibility, which includes other forms of motorsport, as well as non-sporting transport and road safety campaigns.
But AUTOSPORT's concern is naturally only with the motorsport element of this portfolio, and particularly with F1 in this case. In that regard, Todt's record seems, well, obscure.
He's made repeated statements about the vital need to cut costs in Formula 1 (though he claims F1 is less expensive than it was 10 years ago), and against a backdrop of independent teams pleading poverty at the back end of last season, the FIA commissioned a detailed study to examine how F1 could cut its cloth accordingly.
When US consultant McKinsey delivered its findings at the start of this year, Todt says the FIA came up against the familiar blockade of team opposition to change, so its proposals weren't adopted.
"We financed the McKinsey study, which incidentally was a terrible idea," Todt reflects. "We had a strategy meeting - I think it was in December - and Sergio Marchionne said maybe we should ask for some input from a company like McKinsey. A good company, not directly involved because sometimes if they are too much involved you don't have enough 'healthy visibility' to address anything.
Teams elected not to act on an independent, FIA-funded study last year © LAT |
"I thought, 'OK, maybe it's a good idea'. So we made a consultation, we prepared very smart people with a good vision, and a broad vision about business around the world. We financed the study, and then at the end of the day the first step is, 'we should do that' and then it goes for application and they [the teams] don't want it."
The cost debate hasn't gone away, meanwhile F1 seems trapped in a spiral of negativity, intent on destroying itself by talking up its imperfections and talking down its virtues. This is a time where leadership, shorn of the vested interests that drag F1 down so often, is badly needed.
Todt's answer? We should all simply be more positive, and work closer together...
"We all have a responsibility to inform - my people, myself, the competitors, the media - we should all work as a team because how do you all get your living? It's through the sport," he argues.
"I think everyone should be positive. If Luc Besson is making a new movie and he says: 'You know guys, my new movie is shit', is that going encourage people to go and watch the movie?
"Maybe if he feels the movie is not good, he will call all of his production team and he will say: 'Here it is too long, here we need to change that', but the whole intention will be to make a successful movie, which is what we need to do.
Todt has called on Bernie Ecclestone, among others, to stop criticising F1 in public © XPB |
"So if something is not working properly [in F1], let's all sit together, let's come up with a prescription, address the problem and make it better.
"So far I have never had what I will call the perfect prescription of what we need to do."
But why does the president of the FIA have to be so collaborative? Why can't he just decide independently on the correct course of action, empowered by the fact he is leader of an organisation that should represent the best interests of F1, and then try to bring the vested interests into line, even allowing for the power of F1's Strategy Group selective to interfere?
Regardless of the fact the FIA does not have absolute power on the Strategy Group (it, the commercial rights holder and the teams each hold six votes), why is Todt, as president of the custodian of the category, not more vocal in pushing for the F1 he wants to see?
Again, perhaps it is simply his style - to be collaborative rather than confrontational: "Sometimes I am accused of being too democratic and listening to too many people," he says. "But I am happy to listen to any kind of suggestions as long as they are constructive suggestions.
"I have read quite often that it should be FIA or FOM [Formula One Management] to decide. Again I am quite happy to sit with Bernie and decide what could be good for the sport, but we need to be sure that it is good for the sport.
Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams are part of F1's Strategy Group, while Manor and Sauber are not © LAT |
"Believe me, those who claim that they should be involved and that it should be FIA and the commercial rights holder to decide, they will be the first to shout and say: 'they are not following the right governance [procedures]; they did not consult us'.
"If they keep saying that it should be us to decide, then I will have that in writing. If they want it, give us an official mandate and then we will see how they react. It is a lot of talking."
The FIA is also in a difficult position, because the previous regime signed over the commercial rights to Formula 1 to a third party, and is now dependent on that third party for income.
Perhaps Todt seems ineffectual because the president of the FIA is no longer able to be effectual due to factors outside his control? But Mosley did that fateful deal, had to operate under its terms, and he appeared highly active and engaged in the plight and future of F1.
Todt points out the hypocrisy of smaller teams willingly signing up to the commercial deals they now complain about vociferously. In fact, everything he said in Paris suggests he is well able to identify F1's many incongruous ills.
But his 'collaborative' approach to solving them only works when everyone's interests are broadly aligned. Sometimes, it is necessary to wield the big stick to bring everyone into line.
Mosley was prepared to do that and seemed, for all his undoubted faults, a real leader of F1. Todt, rightly or wrongly, looks like more of a passenger.
Listen to FIA president Jean Todt speak about the state of Formula 1, as a select group of us were permitted to do during a special press briefing in Paris last week, and one begins to wonder about the perfect circle of inertia that sometimes surrounds the sport he governs.
The F1 teams (well a certain proportion of them in any case) agree rules and commercial contracts, then complain the regulator and the commercial rights holder are ruining the category and not permitting them to function properly; the commercial rights holder blames the teams for being too greedy and having too much power, and criticises the direction of the category as defined by the regulations, but pockets the vast proportion of F1's revenues; while the FIA seems an impotent middle man - unable or unwilling to bash heads together and take control of the sport it regulates and once owned.
What role should the FIA take in shaping Formula 1, and what leadership has current president Jean Todt (in power since 2009) shown in trying to ensure the governing body's flagship motor racing product remains at the forefront of worldwide sporting excellence?
I'm not really sure how to answer that question. Todt is rarely visible or vocal at grands prix - not in the way his predecessor Max Mosley was. The Frenchman seems to take a hands-off approach to governing F1. Perhaps that is simply his style of presidency - taking a back seat in order to make more considered judgements.
"All in all I am prepared to be criticised and I am prepared learn from the criticism if they [the critics] bring me something," Todt says. "I think you can achieve much more by knowing confrontation, rather than by confrontation. If I can avoid it, I prefer to avoid it.
Todt took a hands-on approach to a Citroen DS/Virgin Racing press conference during London's Formula E finale © LAT |
"I love motorsport, but I feel in your life you have a lot of other things. Maybe I put more interest on the things that are not directly linked to F1.
"People may interpret that as me not being interested in F1, but that is not true. I am not only interested by F1."
That's probably because Formula 1 represents a mere fraction of the FIA's global responsibility, which includes other forms of motorsport, as well as non-sporting transport and road safety campaigns.
But AUTOSPORT's concern is naturally only with the motorsport element of this portfolio, and particularly with F1 in this case. In that regard, Todt's record seems, well, obscure.
He's made repeated statements about the vital need to cut costs in Formula 1 (though he claims F1 is less expensive than it was 10 years ago), and against a backdrop of independent teams pleading poverty at the back end of last season, the FIA commissioned a detailed study to examine how F1 could cut its cloth accordingly.
When US consultant McKinsey delivered its findings at the start of this year, Todt says the FIA came up against the familiar blockade of team opposition to change, so its proposals weren't adopted.
"We financed the McKinsey study, which incidentally was a terrible idea," Todt reflects. "We had a strategy meeting - I think it was in December - and Sergio Marchionne said maybe we should ask for some input from a company like McKinsey. A good company, not directly involved because sometimes if they are too much involved you don't have enough 'healthy visibility' to address anything.
Teams elected not to act on an independent, FIA-funded study last year © LAT |
"I thought, 'OK, maybe it's a good idea'. So we made a consultation, we prepared very smart people with a good vision, and a broad vision about business around the world. We financed the study, and then at the end of the day the first step is, 'we should do that' and then it goes for application and they [the teams] don't want it."
The cost debate hasn't gone away, meanwhile F1 seems trapped in a spiral of negativity, intent on destroying itself by talking up its imperfections and talking down its virtues. This is a time where leadership, shorn of the vested interests that drag F1 down so often, is badly needed.
Todt's answer? We should all simply be more positive, and work closer together...
"We all have a responsibility to inform - my people, myself, the competitors, the media - we should all work as a team because how do you all get your living? It's through the sport," he argues.
"I think everyone should be positive. If Luc Besson is making a new movie and he says: 'You know guys, my new movie is shit', is that going encourage people to go and watch the movie?
"Maybe if he feels the movie is not good, he will call all of his production team and he will say: 'Here it is too long, here we need to change that', but the whole intention will be to make a successful movie, which is what we need to do.
Todt has called on Bernie Ecclestone, among others, to stop criticising F1 in public © XPB |
"So if something is not working properly [in F1], let's all sit together, let's come up with a prescription, address the problem and make it better.
"So far I have never had what I will call the perfect prescription of what we need to do."
But why does the president of the FIA have to be so collaborative? Why can't he just decide independently on the correct course of action, empowered by the fact he is leader of an organisation that should represent the best interests of F1, and then try to bring the vested interests into line, even allowing for the power of F1's Strategy Group selective to interfere?
Regardless of the fact the FIA does not have absolute power on the Strategy Group (it, the commercial rights holder and the teams each hold six votes), why is Todt, as president of the custodian of the category, not more vocal in pushing for the F1 he wants to see?
Again, perhaps it is simply his style - to be collaborative rather than confrontational: "Sometimes I am accused of being too democratic and listening to too many people," he says. "But I am happy to listen to any kind of suggestions as long as they are constructive suggestions.
"I have read quite often that it should be FIA or FOM [Formula One Management] to decide. Again I am quite happy to sit with Bernie and decide what could be good for the sport, but we need to be sure that it is good for the sport.
Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams are part of F1's Strategy Group, while Manor and Sauber are not © LAT |
"Believe me, those who claim that they should be involved and that it should be FIA and the commercial rights holder to decide, they will be the first to shout and say: 'they are not following the right governance [procedures]; they did not consult us'.
"If they keep saying that it should be us to decide, then I will have that in writing. If they want it, give us an official mandate and then we will see how they react. It is a lot of talking."
The FIA is also in a difficult position, because the previous regime signed over the commercial rights to Formula 1 to a third party, and is now dependent on that third party for income.
Perhaps Todt seems ineffectual because the president of the FIA is no longer able to be effectual due to factors outside his control? But Mosley did that fateful deal, had to operate under its terms, and he appeared highly active and engaged in the plight and future of F1.
Todt points out the hypocrisy of smaller teams willingly signing up to the commercial deals they now complain about vociferously. In fact, everything he said in Paris suggests he is well able to identify F1's many incongruous ills.
But his 'collaborative' approach to solving them only works when everyone's interests are broadly aligned. Sometimes, it is necessary to wield the big stick to bring everyone into line.
Mosley was prepared to do that and seemed, for all his undoubted faults, a real leader of F1. Todt, rightly or wrongly, looks like more of a passenger.
