21 What is the relationship between FIA, FOCA and F1 ?
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This article is from the Motorsport FAQ, by A H Henry bspahh@midge.bath.ac.uk with numerous contributions by others.
21 What is the relationship between FIA, FOCA and F1 ?
FIA politics is really grungy stuff.
The Federation Internationale d'Automobile (FIA) is the governing
and sanctioning body for the FIA World Driver's Championship, which
is run to a set of technical and procedural regulations and
specifications known as Formula One. The FIA's competition committee,
which consists of representatives of the motor sport organising
bodies of the member countries (eg ACCUS represents the US, the RAC
represents the UK, the FFSA represents France), sets the F1
regulations, interprets them, and judges any appeals or disputes.
The Formula One Constructor's Association (FOCA) is an organisation
of the chassis builders (constructors) who design and build the cars
that race in the F1 Grands Prix. Since the rules these days say that
a constructor can supply cars to only one team, constructor and team
are more or less synonymous.
Max Mosley is the president of the FIA and is in charge of its
day-to-day operations.
Bernie Ecclestone, who used to own and manage the Brabham F1 team,
is the president of the FOCA and also the vice-president of marketing
for the FIA.
Originally, all the F1 Grands Prix were independent events,
independently financed and organised within their host countries. The
FIA merely set the technical regulations for F1, and designated
certain Grands Prix to be the qualifying rounds for the Driver's and
Constructor's Championships. Up until sometime in the 1970s, there
were other Grands Prix held besides those races included in the FIA
Championship. But the idea of non-Championship Grands Prix died out
as it became more and more expensive to hold F1 events.
As time went by, the Constructor's Association (FOCA) took on a
bigger and bigger role in the business side of Grand Prix racing.
They organised and coordinated the sponsorship of the events, sold
the television rights, and did the logistics and financing of moving
the Grand Prix `circus' from country to country.
Then, in the late 1970s, Jean-Marie Balestre was elected as head of
the Committee du Sport Internationale (CSI), the committee of the FIA
directly involved in supervising F1. He decided that the FIA should
take back more control over the sport. When he tried to impose his
will autocratically, Bernie Ecclestone and the other constructors in
FOCA resisted. There was a big power struggle between FISA
(Federacion Internationale du Sport Automotive, Balestre's new name
for the CSI) and FOCA in the early 1980s. Some Grands Prix got
cancelled or had their championship status stripped as a result.
In the end, FISA and the FIA won out over the FOCA, mainly, I
think, because the teams were not unanimously behind the FOCA (not
all constructors were FOCA members), and because the sponsors, race
organisers, and others involved in Grand Prix racing prevailed on
both sides to settle things amicably. But for a while, the FOCA was
talking about forming a new F1 championship series comprising the
races that it organised, while the FIA of course was threatening to
refuse sanctioning for those races. There almost were two `World
Championship' series.
Later on, Bernie Ecclestone was appointed marketing director for
the FIA, but he still retains his presidency of FOCA. So Bernie is
still in charge of the organisational and financial side of Grand
Prix racing, but now officially as part of the FIA instead of in an
independent organisation.
The agreement between FISA and FOCA over control of F1 is called
the Concorde Agreement. Among other things, it says that except in
the case of emergencies, changes to technical regulations must be
announced two years in advance of the date of adoption, unless all
constructors agree unanimously to adopt the regulations earlier. This
came up in 1994 because Max Mosley wanted to introduce several major
technical changes in the wake of a series of fatal and near-fatal
accidents in F1. He made these changes without the unanimous
agreement called for by the Concorde Agreement, by claiming that this
was an emergency situation.
So Max Mosley, as FIA president, is responsible for setting rules
and policy for F1, but he's limited by the Concorde Agreement in how
quickly and how far he can push things his way. Since Bernie
Ecclestone still controls the purse strings for Grand Prix racing, he
still carries a lot of clout.
As for `can somebody take it away', the FIA president is elected by
the representatives from the member countries. When Max Mosley's
current term is up, he could be voted out. Similarly, I think that
the constructors could oust Ecclestone if they wanted to.
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