Things may have settled down on the racetrack, where the same guy wins or comes in second in every race, but behind the scenes there seems to be a battle brewing, the winner of which is far from certain.
As my full race report indicates, Sebastian Vettel seems to not to have noticed that the technical rules in Formula One were radically changed this year to allow for suspense, overtaking and multiple winners. (Remember? That was the stuff we had last year and the year before and the year before … before all the new rules.)
On the business side of the series, we have a much more in-depth look at the News Corp. and other potential takeovers of F1, that Eric Pfanner and I worked on over the last few weeks – which includes a talk with Bernie Ecclestone.That article looks at how car manufacturers may threaten to break from the series.
Now it seems Formula One may be threatened by the circuit promoters!? Christian Sylt, who is quoted in our F1 business story, has written a few articles on the Pitpass.com Web site, saying that the circuit owners are not happy that Formula One will not be as noisy in 2014 if the the new 6-cylinder, 15,000 rpm engines go through.
The circuit promoters say they are ready to switch to the IndyCar format. The team technical heads met in Valencia and approved that plan, which has now to be approved by the World Motor Sport Council of the International Automobile Federation.
It occurs to me that if the circuit owners switched to IndyCar, that would be a golden opportunity for the Formula One teams to carry out the breakaway they threaten! For once they would be assured of carrying their public with them. At least that's my opinion. Anyone agree?
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