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Small teams closing on better deal
F1's struggling teams are hopeful a deal can be struck to ensure their survival, which is likely to take the form of an extra base payment from the sport's commercial rights holder.
F1's unequal revenue sharing
- Five of Formula One's 11 teams - Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams - took 63% of the sport's underlying revenues in 2013.
- This means there was just 37% to share between six teams, only one of which (Lotus) sits on the F1 Strategy Group - giving that group little democratic input in the body which frames regulations.
Force India, Lotus and Sauber were vocal about their financial struggles over the US Grand Prix weekend, even discussing the possibility of a boycott to get their point across. Their grievances lie with the unequal distribution of prize money from the sport's commercial rights holder, which is heavily weighted towards the sport's biggest teams.
However, Lotus boss Gerard Lopez is confident a deal can be struck this week with Bernie Ecclestone and F1's controlling shareholders CVC Capital that allows the smaller teams to receive enough money to operate on a workable budget.
"I really think there is a way to solve this in the coming days, probably even to get to a proposal before Brazil, in which case I don't see the point in doing anything drastic that would damage the sport.
"It can take various forms, but for sure the so-called smaller teams - one of my colleagues called it the racers versus the constructors, which I like much better because it is the truth - and he gave a definition that was quite interesting.
"He said it takes the constructor teams a lot of money to lose because there is only one winner, but the racer teams are always going to spend about the same thing on performance.
"We're struggling for performance, but we finished ahead of a McLaren and a Ferrari so it proves the system doesn't have to spend 300-400million.
"I know CVC and Bernie have been looking at this, but it's going to be a base payment given to the smaller teams, the racers, which is essentially going to make it possible for a normal budget to be pretty much closed here."
F1's biggest teams have been reluctant to make sacrifices and under their agreements they would also be entitled to an extra payment. But Lopez thinks a deal can still be struck to keep all parties happy.
"To be honest, it's really not a complicated thing to do. It just requires a bit of good will. The overall amount we're discussing, we're not talking about a half of that, a third of that, or anything like that.
"Once you start dividing it by the number of teams, it suddenly does not become that massive. There is a way to build a proposal in the next couple of days."
Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says the deal would be a fair solution given the current difficulties for small teams in the sport.
"We three teams that have been speaking to each other have agreement on that. Nobody is asking here for anything unreasonable. I think we have to recognise that times have changed, the level to enter Formula One has changed. There was a reason for the system earlier, now things have really changed so one has to rethink that. We all have put in too much investment in to this that you can't just let it fizzle out. Those times are long gone where a bunch of people got together on the weekends and went from track to track and raced."
She also made clear that the money being discussed was a bare minimum for survival and the small teams would still have to work hard to secure more funding on top of that.
"I believe that the figures we have been discussing amongst us three are at a decent level and can allow us to be in the sport decently. That's all we say, the rest is up to us. We're not asking for a solution where it's dreams come true and we just have a comfortable, cushy life. No, all we say is you have to be allowed from the income that the sport generates itself to have a decent living in here; that you're not struggling every month, every year to really make your ends meet."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
