Geoffrey Harris•17 Jan 2014

NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Criminal charges curb Ecclestone's clout

If the Victorian government is to extend its F1 grand prix beyond 2015 it may not be with Bernie Ecclestone's signature on the contract. Lots more happening in F1 – and team orders in play on the Dakar Rally

Bribery trial set for April in Germany

A shadow – some will say just another, darker shadow – has been cast over Formula One with the sport’s long-time supremo Bernie Ecclestone to face criminal charges, probably in April.

It could have implications for the renewal of Melbourne’s Grand Prix deal because 83-year-old Ecclestone can’t approve or sign major contracts until the case is settled – and he could face up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

In the vacuum created by the absence of updates on Michael Schumacher’s condition, reports are surfacing from Germany that the seven-time world champion may never come out of the coma into which he was induced after his skiing accident in France almost three weeks ago.

While these reports quote neurological experts they are not doctors involved in treating Schumacher.

However, perhaps the adage that no (official) news is good news is contradicted in this instance.

Meanwhile, Ron Dennis is taking charge of the McLaren F1 team again after its woeful 2013 season and there is a new move for an American F1 team – by a tycoon who did a jail stint for conspiring to commit tax evasion and who has been treated for alcohol dependence.

In the Dakar Rally the X-Raid team has invoked team orders to ensure it fills all three podium positions in the car category with its Mini All4s.

If the order remains the same over the final two days it will mean victory for Spaniard Nani Roma, denying Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel a 12th win in the event, a sixth win on four wheels and a third straight.

And the Monte Carlo Rally is being led after the first day by a Frenchman, but it’s not reigning world champion Sebastien Ogier (and nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb is retired from rallying).

It’s Bryan Bouffier, a former winner but not a full-time World Rally Championship competitor. He’s in a Ford Fiesta RS.

New stars Kris Meeke (Citroen) and Robert Kubica (Ford) are flying too, heading Ogier (Volkswagen), while the debut of Hyundai’s i20 ended for Belgian Thierry Neuville with a crash 6km into the rally and Spanish teammate Dani Sordo ground to a halt on stage five.

F1 board imposes controls on sport’s ‘driver’

Bernie Ecclestone has vowed to fight to clear his name on the charges of bribery and inciting another person to commit a breach of trust brought against him by German prosecutors.

The charges were lodged last July but it is only now that the prosecution has signaled its intention to proceed, with the case likely to be heard in late April.

Ecclestone will remain the hands-on, day-to-day chief executive of F1 but is not to act as a director.

He will be more closely supervised by the board led by chairman Peter Brabeck (also the chairman of Nestle) and deputy chairman Donald Mackenzie of F1’s major owner CVC, a private equity firm.

The board has issued a statement saying Ecclestone has reassured it he is innocent and will vigorously defend the charges.

They relate to a payment of $44 million he admits making to German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky, who is serving an 8½-year jail term for receiving a bribe.

Ecclestone has said the payment was to get Gribkowsky out of his hair after he had threatened to tell British tax authorities about the operation of an Ecclestone family trust, which the diminutive London billionaire had feared could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take up a lot of his time.

It has been alleged that the payment to Gribkowsky was to ensure he engineered a sale of 47 per cent of F1 to CVC in 2001 at a price below the full value of the shares.

A London judge’s decision is due soon in a civil case in which German company Constantin Medien – a remnant of late German media tycoon Leo Kirch’s failed empire – has sought more than US$100 million in damages as a result of that transaction.

These legal issues, as well as a suit by an American-led syndicate that claims it was prepared to pay more for the shares than CVC and an investigation into Ecclestone’s affairs by Swiss authorities, have delayed for more than 18 months efforts to float F1 on the Singapore stock market at a value of $10 billion.

They also could complicate Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker’s attempts to negotiate a new Melbourne GP contract beyond 2015 on behalf of the Victorian government, although presumably Brabeck and/or Mackenzie could sign instead of Ecclestone.

Ron Dennis pledges McLaren renewal

Four years after stepping aside as McLaren team principal in favour of Martin Whitmarsh, Ron Dennis is assuming the reins again at the team that has been Ferrari’s main rival throughout F1 history.

Dennis has said that McLaren’s shareholders – Bahrain’s royal family with 50 per cent through the Mumtalakat investment fund, Mansour Ojeh of TAG with 25 per cent and Dennis with the other quarter – have “mandated me to write an exciting new chapter in the story of McLaren, beginning by improving our on-track and off-track performance”.

“We will win again,” Dennis declared.

McLaren did not make the podium last year – its worst season in three decades.

Whitmarsh is said not to have been present when Dennis addressed McLaren staff this week and his future is in doubt.

There is speculation that Ross Brawn, who quit the Mercedes team at the end of last season, may be brought in as team principal at McLaren, which is entering its last season with Mercedes as its engine supplier before renewing its partnership with Honda.

Brawn took the team once wholly-owned by Honda to world titles in 2009 as Brawn GP and earlier had been associated with Michael Schumacher in all his championship successes at Benetton and Ferrari.

Jenson Button, Brawn’s champion driver in 2009, is now at McLaren.

Meanwhile, American tycoon Gene Haas has responded to the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) call late last year for expressions of interest in forming new F1 teams.

Haas is working in association with Gunther Steiner, who was technical director of Jaguar F1 when Mark Webber raced for that team in 2003-04.

Haas is estimated to be worth US$750 million and owns the largest machine tool builder in the US, a wind tunnel in Charlotte, North Carolina, and facilities in Belgium that are said to be a potential base for an F1 team.

Haas already co-owns a NASCAR team with three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart.

He is said to want to field F1 cars with a Dallara chassis and Ferrari engine.

Last decade Haas served 16 months of a 24-month sentence for conspiring to commit tax evasion.

He was accused of running a bogus invoicing scheme to produce sham tax deductions.

Haas also was treated in a 500-hour program for alcohol dependence.

There are reported to have been two other expressions of interest in the FIA call – one of them from former F1 team principal Colin Kolles.

Pirelli has been given a contract to supply F1’s tyres until the end of the 2016 season.

Limited tyre testing will be reintroduced during this year.

Peterhansel declares ‘game over’ in Dakar

After Stephane Peterhansel had narrowed Nani Roma’s Dakar Rally lead to little more than two minutes the Frenchman was told to maintain station as the X-Raid team tries to ensure a clean sweep of the podium in Chile this weekend with its MINI All4s.

Argentinean Orlando Terranova won the latest 605km stage in one of the MINIs but is fourth outright, behind Roma, Peterhansel and Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah in another of the X-Raid entries.

South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers is fifth in a Toyota Hilux and a Chinese-made Haval is eighth, albeit more than five hours behind the lead MINI.

Less than one-third of the 152 cars that started the event in Argentina are still running but the South African-prepared Ford Ranger driven by Argentinean veteran Lucio Alvarez has been in the top 10 on the past two stages and is 22nd overall.

Among the lead MINIs out in front Terranova is almost 64 minutes behind Roma after 11 days of competition, Al-Attiyah is 56 minutes behind the Spaniard, while Peterhansel backed off a little on the latest stage and is now 5½ minutes off the lead.

“The game is over,” Peterhansel said after being told to ease his pressure on Roma.

“The team asked us not to take any more risks.

“We’ve had a good laugh and enjoyed ourselves, but it’s a bit frustrating because we’ve done most of the hard work.

“But, if MINI wants to have three cars on the podium, at the speed at which we are driving out in front it’s easy to crash a car or even two in just one day.

“We know that this (team orders) can happen, but I didn’t think they would do it.”

Snow job does the trick in Monte

Frenchman Bryan Bouffier ended the first day of the Monte Carlo Rally 38.8 seconds in the lead.

The key to Bouffier’s success was fitting one snow tyre to the front of his Ford Fiesta RS and one on the rear for the third of the day’s six stages.

That enabled him to take a huge chunk of time out of his closest rivals and leap into the lead by 41.5 seconds.

Super-soft tyres had been favoured by competitors during the morning but the afternoon called for winter tyres.

Robert Kubica, Poland’s former grand prix winner before the hand injury from a rally crash that ended his F1 career, stunned the Monte field by winning the first two stages in his Fiesta.

But Kubica did not have snow tyres for the third stage and immediately dropped to fourth place, although he made up a position by the end of the day.

Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai i20 was 4.5 seconds faster than Sebastien Ogier’s Volkswagen Polo R at the first split time on the opening stage but the Belgian crashed soon after.

Ogier had hit a wall early, without serious damage, and in the afternoon won two of three stages but was still only fourth at the end of the day, 47.3 seconds behind Bouffier.

Kris Meeke held second place, 38.8 seconds adrift of Bouffier and 0.7 seconds ahead of Kubica.

Dani Sordo had been up to third during the day before his Hyundai refused to restart on the fifth stage.

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MOTORSPORT: Criminal charges curb Ecclestone's clout

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