HOWZAT

Getting out of the FIA’s governance and creating a new championship would relieve the teams of their commitment to CVC. The FIA F1 world championship for 2010 has entries from two existing teams (Williams and Force India) and theoretically three new teams, although there is speculation that at least two of those are on the point of transferring to the planned Fota championship. For all that Mosley says he is confident all of the teams will compete in the 2010 FIA F1 world championship, it would appear that they hold the aces.

The four issues that have split Formula One down the middle:

MONEY

Half the income generated by Formula One leaves the sport via the commercial rights-holder, CVC, a venture capital company. Much of F1’s revenue is used to pay off debts in other parts of CVC’s business. The teams resent this.

At the most fundamental level, the teams dispute the FIA’s right to have awarded the long-term (100 years) F1 commercial rights to Bernie Ecclestone in 2001. Previously, the rights were leased collectively to the teams. Tens of millions of dollars have been withheld by Ecclestone from some of the teams, dating back to 2006 in a contractual dispute.

FIA president Max Mosley’s wish to cap budgets has not met with the approval of the teams, who want to monitor and control their own costs. They argue that this year they have achieved the biggest cuts ever, entirely through their voluntary efforts.

The teams also complain that the huge hosting fees paid by race promoters to Ecclestone have caused excessive ticket prices. Following the money has led to unpopular grands prix — Bahrain, China, Turkey — where nobody wants to watch. Popular grands prix — Canada , USA, France — have been lost because they cannot match the government-subsidised fees paid by the newer circuits.

GOVERNANCE

The teams feel that Mosley’s governance is confrontational and not in the interests of the sport, only in the interests of him and Ecclestone retaining power.

They object to Mosley’s autocratic style and his reduction of the teams’ involvement in changes of regulation. Mosley claims such autocracy is needed to make any changes he sees as necessary, because the disparate interests of the teams mean there is seldom agreement between them.

The Formula One Teams Association (Fota) teams are not prepared to sign up for a 2010 championship in which the rules would allow cost-capped teams technical freedoms not available to non-capped teams. The FIA has offered to delete this part of the rules, but the teams do not trust that this will happen.

The manufacturer teams also take great exception to having no say on the F1 venues. The choices of countries is made by Ecclestone. Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo was enraged to discover the Canadian Grand Prix had been removed from this year’s calendar by reading it in a newspaper. The teams were hugely disappointed that the contract for the US Grand Prix — in the most important market for manufacturers — was not renewed after 2007.

Teams were surprised by the tenacity of the FIA’s actions against McLaren and its boss, Ron Dennis, over alleged espionage in 2007, and shocked by the $100m fine. A climate of fear hangs over the other teams as a result.

The constant updating of technical regulations has meant huge extra costs for the teams, who question the need for such changes. New technology — such as the KERS energy retention system introduced this year — has increased expenses at a time of supposed cost-cutting. These devices have cost teams up to £15m to develop, and incur running costs of about £350,000 every race weekend.

CONTROL

The FIA sees a danger in the sport being controlled by the car manufacturers. Their main business is not F1, and they could pull out at short notice. It feels their power needs to be curtailed, and envisages an F1 with independent teams at its core.

The FIA sees cost-capping as a way of preventing the big-budget manufacturer teams from achieving performance that is out of reach of the smaller outfits.

PHILOSOPHY

There is disagreement over the extent of the technical competition there should be. Previously, the FIA wanted greater technical restrictions than the teams, who wanted to be able to innovate. Now the FIA would like to see more technical innovation within a controlled budget, whereas the teams want to standardise certain non-critical components and limit updates to three packages per season.