FISA-FOCA war
Encyclopedia : F : FI : FIS : FISA-FOCA war
The FISA-FOCA war was a political battle contested throughout the early 1980's by the two representative organizations in Formula One motor racing.
Introduction
The battle was in essence a control exercise contested between FISA (the Federation Internationale du Sport Automotive, which has now been wholly absorbed into the FIA, but was once a separate if not autonomous entity which managed international motorsport) and FOCA (the Formula One Constructor's Association).The principals in the matter were Jean Marie Balestre, then FISA president, Bernie Ecclestone, then the leader of the Formula One Constructor's Association and owner of the Brabham formula one team, and Max Mosley, now president of the FIA, but then legal advisor to both Ecclestone's Brabham team and FOCA in general.
The beginnings of the dispute are numerous, and many of the underlying reasons may be lost in history. Suffice it to say that the teams (excepting Ferrari and the other major manufacturers - Renault and Alfa Romeo in particular) were of the opinion that their rights and ability to compete against the larger and better funded teams were being negatively affected by a perceived bias on the part of the controlling organisation (FISA) toward the major manufacturers.
In addition, the battle revolved around the commercial aspects of the sport (the FOCA teams were unhappy with the disbursement of proceeds from the races) and the technical regulations (which, in FOCA's opinion, tended to be malleable according to the nature of the transgressor more than the nature of the transgression).
In any event, the battles raged throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's, with a notable point being the formation of a short lived "World Federation of Motorsport" in November of 1980 to stage a rival championship. The FOCA teams staged a Formula One race under the WFMS banner in South Africa in February 1981, won by Carlos Reutemann in a Williams FW07B-Cosworth. However, the lack of major factory team attendance, and the resulting poor fan support and non-existent media coverage meant that the viability of the rival series was compromised immediately. A grudging settlement was reached thereafter which allowed the FOCA teams to return to the "FIA" world championship in time for the first race in March.
The war culminated in a FOCA boycott of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix months later. In theory, all FOCA teams were supposed to boycott the Grand Prix as a sign of solidarity and complaint at the handling of the regulations and financial compensation (and, it must be said, extreme opposition to the accession of the mercurial Balestré to the position of FISA president - both Colin Chapman of Lotus and Frank Williams of Williams stated clearly that they would not continue in Formula 1 with Balestré as its governor). In practise, several of the FOCA teams backed out of the boycott, citing "sponsors obligation". Notable among these were the Tyrrell and Toleman teams.
In any event, this left the race to be run with less than a full field. While only six cars could reasonably be considered to be outside the FOCA membership, 14 cars actually took part in the race owing to late defections. In addition to the factory cars from Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo, the Tyrrell, Osella, ATS and Toleman teams also participated. The hard feelings and repercussions of the four "FOCA" teams' participation in the race would carry on into the mid 1980's and significantly impact the competitiveness of those teams.
Boycott & Water-Cooled Brakes
The FOCA team bosses claimed that their boycott of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix was in response to the disqualification of Nelson Piquet's Brabham and Keke Rosberg's Williams (both FOCA cars) from the 1982 Brazilian Grand Prix.This disqualification was a response to the FOCA teams' attempts to overcome their cars' power deficit to the FISA teams' turbocharged engines. Renault had introduced Turbocharged engines to Formula 1 in the late 1970’s. Initially the turbo engines had been heavy, unreliable, and difficult to drive, meaning that the Ford-Cosworth DFV engines that were used by the majority of the Formula 1 teams (with Ferrari as the notable exception) were still dominant. However, by 1982 turbo engines were becoming more reliable and easier to drive. By this time Ferrari and Alfa Romeo joined Renault in the turbo camp. The FOCA teams stuck with the DFV, but the engine (which had been introduced in 1967) was showing its age and was significantly down on power relative to the newest turbo engines. In order to keep pace with the turbo cars, the FOCA team bosses began to look for loopholes in the regulations.
Before the Brazilian race, the FOCA teams found a loophole in the weighing procedure used at the races. The rules stated that a car would be weighed with all coolants and lubricants on board, and said nothing about whether those coolants and lubricants needed to be in the car when the race finished. The FOCA teams claimed that this meant that all coolants and lubricants could be 'topped up' after the race. This practice was illegal in all other forms of FIA racing, but was not explicitly banned in Formula 1.
With this in mind, the FOCA teams showed up at the 1982 Brazilian Grand Prix with water-cooled brakes. The cars were also fitted with large water tanks, which the teams claimed were to hold the water needed to cool the brakes. In reality, the water in the tanks wasn’t used for cooling the brakes at all, but was instead sprayed out of the car in the early laps of the race. This resulted in the cars running most of the race significantly under the mandated minimum weight limit. However, after the race the teams refilled the tanks before the cars were weighed, since the cars were supposed to be weighed with all coolants and lubricants on board, and the water was supposed to be a coolant.
The FOCA cars of Piquet and Rosberg finished first and second respectively, with the FISA car of Alian Prost finishing third (without the water-cooled brakes). Prost’s team (Renault) immediately protested the top two cars, and Rosberg and Piquet were disqualified for finishing the race underweight. The FISA teams accused the FOCA teams of intentionally mis-interpreting the rule in question, while the FOCA teams claimed that since ‘topping up’ the tanks wasn’t specifically illegal, it had to be legal. Brabham and Williams appealed the disqualification of their cars.
As per normal procedure, there was a delay before the FIA Court of Appeals heard the appeal on the disqualifications. This meant that another Grand Prix (the United States Grand Prix West) was run before the appeal were heard, and Ferrari (who was aligned with FISA) took the opportunity to show where things would lead if teams were allowed to exploit loopholes in the regulations. Both Ferraris showed up at the race with two rear wings. The wings were located side-by-side, with one slightly in front of the other. Both wings were the legal size, but the effect was the same as running one rear wing that was double the legal width. Ferrari claimed that this setup was legal, as there was no rule that said teams could only run one rear wing, therefore running multiple rear wings had to be legal. The FIA disagreed, and disqualified Gilles Villeneuve after he finished 3rd in a Ferrari.
Whether this episode influenced the FIA Court of Appeals or not is unknown, but either way the appeals from Williams and Brabham were rejected, and the disqualifications stood. Ironically, the rest of the FOCA cars in the Brazilian Grand Prix (some of which had scored points) were not disqualified despite the fact that they ran the same water-cooled brakes system. The reason was simple: Renault had only protested the cars which had finished in front of their driver (Prost). None of the other FOCA cars had been protested, meaning that they were allowed to keep their points.
Rules and Breaches
During this period, the Formula One rules specified that any car must weigh at least 585kgs to be deemed in compliance with the rules. The method of testing was somewhat haphazard - teams would be notified that they would be "weight checked" when they exitted the pits during practise or qualifying. This of course gave the teams ample opportunity to add weight to their cars while in the pits so as to pass the "test". Former F1 driver Eddie Cheever offered an interesting anecdote from 1982 in which his Tyrrell was tagged for a weight check in qualifying. The team promptly took off the "racing" rear wing (a fiberglass/metal hybrid) and replaced it with the "weight check" rear wing before allowing him to proceed to the scale. Cheever said it took four of them to lift the "weight check" rear wing, and the car was largely undriveable with it installed. He reckoned that the weight check rear wing was made mostly of lead...Similarly, after the banning of ground effect technology in Formula One at the end of 1980 (though it, of course, returned as quickly as the engineers could manage), the Brabham team devised a system to circumvent the minimum ride height regulation of 6 centimetres. The FISA had implemented this rule in order to make it relatively easy to eliminate ground effect skirts and underwings, both of which required that the bodywork of the car be more or less in contact with the racing surface at all times. The Brabham team (at the time headed by Ecclestone, with legal representation by Max Mosley, and Chief Mechanic Charlie Whiting - all now FIA Senior staffers) designer Gordon Murray produced a hydraulic suspension system which, upon the flick of a cockpit mounted switch, dropped the car down to racing height. When entering or exiting the pits (where the measurement was electronically taken) the car would rise up to meet the 6cm ride height regulation.
Resolution
While it is not clear that these issues were ever properly resolved, the FISA-FOCA war was ultimately put into more or less permanent abeyance by the Concorde Agreement to which both parties agreed to at the beginning of 1981. The regulatory body (FISA, which was an autonomous satellite body created by the FIA to oversee international motorsport) agreed to a more equal distribution of funds, to arbitration provisions (the organization's appeal process left something to be desired prior to the Concorde Agreement, as long time F1 fans will know), and to a timetable for technical regulation changes, amongst other things. The teams agreed to appear for every race in the world championship (which had not been the case previously; often teams did enter "fly away" (i.e., South American, Antipodean, or North American races) events in order to save transport money, under financial penalty, and to abide by the rulings of the arbitration provisions of the agreement. The FOCA teams also agreed to share travel expenses equally amongst all teams who score world championship points in a given season. The initial Concorde Agreement went into effect in 1981 and lasted until 1987. While the Concorde Agreement has been both extended and substantially modified since then, the ten teams contesting the Formula One World Championship in 2005 are still covered under its provisions.Repercussions
The fallout from the FISA-FOCA war is significant and worthy of mention.First, the Concorde Agreement hastened the commercial development of the sport. The fact that promoters could guarantee that "all 26" cars (as was the custom) would appear at every race lead to increased sponsorships and commercial opportunities. This, in turn, led to a significant increase in financial remuneration to each of the teams (including the non-FOCA teams - the manufacturers).
Secondly, those teams who had backed out of the 1982 San Marino boycott were harshly (though perhaps deservedly) dealt with. The Tyrrell team was the last team to obtain a turbocharged engine contract (de rigeur for F1 from 1983 onward), finally signing a deal to run "customer" Renault turbos in the latter part of 1985 (roughly two years before turbo engines were banned). Toleman were effectively squeezed out of the F1 world championship in 1985 when their tyre supplier pulled out of F1. In both cases, it must be said, the teams had previously blotted their copybook with inappropriate acts (in Tyrrell's case, they had backed out of a 1974 contract to run Renault turbo engines, leading directly to the carmakers' entry into F1 as a factory team in 1977. While in Toleman's case, they broke a Pirelli tyre contract in favour of Michelin tyres in 1984, only to be left without a contract when Michelin withdrew at the end of 1984. Pirelli, understandably, felt they could not reasonably supply the team in 1985. Goodyear, the other supplier, refused to do so on grounds of capacity. This was resolved before Monaco Grand Prix in 1985 when, Toleman bought the Pirelli contract from Spirit team, after signing a long-term sponsorship with Luciano Benetton.)
Finally, the entente cordiale between FISA and FOCA lead more or less to the inclusion of some of FOCA's principals within the FIA, namely Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. While it can be debated whether or not Ecclestone and Mosley have bettered the management of the sport, one cannot argue that the commercial aspects of Formula One have grown immensely since their involvement in the late 1980's. Still, there are some areas of the sport that are less equal than they might be.
Amongst the Formula One teams today, the prevailing belief is that there is a separate set of rules for the Ferrari team than for the others (just as in 1981 when the original FISA-FOCA war broke out). This is opinion and not fact. Several current team owners (including Frank Williams and Ron Dennis, both of whom have current lawsuits pending against him) were partners with Bernie Ecclestone in the FOCA war. They now find themselves in opposition to him, for much the same reasons as led to the FISA-FOCA war. Perhaps the only thing that has changed is the proverbial "size of the pie".
Conclusion
While the overall results of the FISA FOCA war can be debated endlessly depending on one's point of view, it is clear that this contre temps moved the sport forward in both revenue and professionalism. Without the agreement that grew out of the conflict, it is unlikely that Formula One would have grown to be the tremendous revenue generating spectacle that it is. The partnership aspect of the Concorde Agreement (much revised as it is, secretive as it now is) brought a level of prosperity and stability to the formula never before seen. For most of its existence, Formula One was a "European Cottage Industry". In the aftermath of the FISA-FOCA war of the early 1980's, it became a global competition.External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.