MOTORSPORT: Huge pay-off plan for Ecclestone

Monday motorsport report

January 27, 2014

Aussie John Martin on podium at Daytona 24-Hour

As new Formula One cars roll out- each with distinctive noses -- ahead of the start of testing tomorrow, it has been revealed that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone may seek to have criminal charges against him dropped by paying about $A450 million to a charity or the German treasury.

The suggestion has come in a report by Christian Sylt, the English-speaking journalist who invariably gets the “drop” on Ecclestone’s moves – and he’s quoting one of the British billionaire’s lawyers.

But any such settlement can’t happen until the case, in which Ecclestone is accused of paying a bribe of more than $A50 million to a former German banker now serving an 8½-year jail sentence for receiving that money, gets underway in April.

And further to our report on Friday that Australian Sam Michael was being touted as the new team principal at McLaren, the favourite for that job now -- replacing Martin Whitmarsh -- is Frenchman Eric Boullier, who suddenly departed the financially-embattled Lotus team at the end of last week.

The Daytona 24-Hour race is over in Florida with Corvette prototypes filling the first four places -- and Australian John Martin a driver of the one in third place.

Many of the drivers and some of the cars from that race now head to Australia for the Bathurst 12-Hour on February 9.

Greg Murphy has continued his great form of last year in New Zealand’s V8 SuperTourer series, scoring a hat-trick of wins at Tony Quinn’s Highlands Park circuit near Queenstown in the opening round of the new season – in the absence of Shane Van Gisbergen, who was racing at Daytona, and Scott McLaughlin.

And John Keeffe, a long-serving chief executive of the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport in the 1980s and ’90s, received an Australia Day honour for “for service to motor sport and the community”.

  
How Bernie can beat the bribery charges

Christian Sylt’s latest report on Bernie Ecclestone, for London’s Daily Mail, is headlined: “The £240m pay-off! How Bernie could settle German bribery case and avoid prison.”

Ecclestone would face a jail sentence of up to 10 years if convicted of bribing Gerhard Gribkowsky, who already is serving his 8½-year term for accepting $US44 million from Ecclestone which a German court found to have been a bribe.

The £240 million Sylt mentions as the probable amount to have charges against Ecclestone dropped equates, at today’s exchange rate, to $A455 million.

That’s about nine times the amount Ecclestone admits paying Gribkowsky, although he denies it was a bribe – claiming it was because the former German banker was blackmailing him.

Sylt quotes a lawyer for Ecclestone, Sven Thomas, saying that a settlement could end the trial, but only once it has begun.

“I don’t think that we can achieve a settlement before the trial starts,” Thomas said.

“During (German) trials settlements are always possible, but not before.”

Sylt said that a court spokeswoman, Margarete Noetzel, confirmed that.

“According to German legal procedure, there is the possibility during the trial to stop the proceedings in return for payment of an agreed sum of money to a charitable institution or the treasury, if the accused, the public prosecutors and also the court agrees with it,” Sylt reported Noetzel telling him.

Sylt continued: “It is not clear how much Ecclestone would have to pay to settle, but it would probably be in the region of £240m.

“This is the amount that BayernLB (the bank for which Gribkowsky worked and which was a major shareholder in F1 until 2005) believes it lost through the sale to (private equity company) CVC, as it claims that if the deal had not gone through other buyers would have come forward and paid more for their F1 stake.

“Although it is unusual for a court to take money to settle criminal charges, it is perfectly acceptable in Germany.

“Neither Ecclestone nor his lawyer has confirmed they will seek a settlement.
“Ecclestone has stressed he is innocent and vows to fight the charges.”

A decision is due soon in a British civil case in which German media company Constantin Medien is claiming more than $A100 million in damages from Ecclestone over the CVC transaction.

A $US650 million suit by American investment firm Bluewaters was dismissed this month by a New York court on the grounds that the dealings did not take place in its jurisdiction.
Bluewaters claimed it had been prepared to pay 10 per cent more than any other bidder for the shares owned by Bayern and other banks but that Ecclestone and Gribkowsky engineered the sale to CVC.

In each of the cases against Ecclestone it has been claimed he favoured CVC as the buyer as it had agreed to retain him to continue running the business.

Ecclestone has stood down from the board of F1 pending the scheduled German trial.
That step has appeased Daimler, parent company of car manufacturer and F1 team owner Mercedes-Benz, whose internal rules prohibit it tolerating “immoral or corrupt practices of its employees or its business partners”.

Although Ecclestone resigned his directorship he continues to run F1’s day-to-day affairs, but the signing of major contracts will be done by the company’s chairman, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, also the chairman of Nestle, and deputy chairman, of CVC.

New F1 cars display creativity even if ugly

The rules requiring narrower, lower noses on this year’s Formula One cars at least are producing some long overdue variety in designs.

The first of three four-day pre-season tests starts tomorrow (Tuesday) at Jerez in Spain.

The Red Bull RB10 car to be driven by Australian Daniel Ricciardo and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel will be revealed only hours before that test begins.

Of the new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 cars already unveiled, Ferrari’s F14-T has the most orthodox nose – wider and flatter than the McLaren MP4-29’s “anteater” look.

The Williams FW36 will have a narrower, pointier nose while the Lotus E22, which won’t appear until the second test in Bahrain, has “twin tusks” – with one tusk protruding further than the other.

McLaren’s team principal of the past four years, Martin Whitmarsh, has not been sighted since Ron Dennis reassumed control of the team about 10 days ago.

While Australian Sam Michael, McLaren’s sporting director the past two seasons, was being mentioned late last week as Whitmarsh’s likely successor, the news late on Friday that Eric Boullier had departed Lotus immediately led to reports that Dennis has lined him up for the job.

Gerard Lopez, head of Genii Capital which is the major owner of the Lotus team, will fill Boullier’s position – at least until someone better qualified is appointed

American Memo Gidley has a broken back from the Daytona 24-Hour crash that made TV news bulletins at the weekend.

Gidley, driving the Corvette Daytona Prototype that Alex Gurney had qualified on pole position for the first race in America’s new United Sports Car Championship, ran into the back a slowing Ferrari 458 towards the end of the third hour of the race, which was red-flagged for more than an hour.

Gidley had to be cut from the battered Riley chassis, had surgery on his left arm and leg and is due for another operation because of an “unstable fracture” in his back.

The Ferari driver, Italian Matteo Malucelli, was taken to hospital with concussion.

 As other Corvette DPs filled the first four places after 695 laps of the 5.696km circuit that incorporates much of the famed Daytona International Speedway and some of its infield, Queenslander John Martin did best of the Australian drivers participating, despite gear selection problems.

Martin shared his Chevrolet-engined car with Americans Brian and Burt Frisselle and Frenchman Fabien Grioix and came within 20 seconds of winning.

The victorious Corvette DP was driven by Portugal’s Joao Barbosa, Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais and Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi and was less than 1.5 seconds ahead - after a final eight-minute sprint - of the similar car of Corvette Italian Max Angelleli, 58-year-old Wayne Taylor and Taylor’s sons, Jordan and Ricky.

“This is one of the big races you want on your resume,” said multiple CART open-wheeler champion and ex-F1 driver Bourdais.

Of the other Australians competing, James Davison was 48th outright – 115 laps behind the winning Corvette – in an Aston Martin V12 Vantage that ran in the GT Daytona category, while James Kovacic was 55th in an Oreca FLM09.

David Brabham’s Honda Performance Development ARX-03b and Ryan Briscoe’s Chevrolet Corvette C7.R were among the 18 cars - of 67 that started - not running at the finish and were classified 59th and 60th.

Briscoe’s car overheated but another C7.R finished 16th, 29 laps down, after a transmission change.

New Zealander Scott Dixon’s Riley prototype with a twin-turbo Ford V6 EcoBoost engine was not running at the end either but was classified 15th, 28 laps behind the winning Corvette.

That was the best result of the four cars with that engine – two entered by Chip Ganassi and two by Michael Shank, both former winning owners at the Daytona 24.

One of the Mazda diesel prototypes came within an hour of finishing before an oil-pump belt failure caused a loss of oil pressure and the other overheated because of a clogged radiator.

The Porsche 911 that V8 Supercar driver Shane Van Gisbergen shared finished 26th outright.