[jfxavier]

Imagine that Red Bull never did have an engine supply crisis, that it was all just a show orchestrated between Mosley, Ecclestone and Mateschitz, just one small but important part of a strategy to deprive the car manufacturers – Ferrari and Mercedes, principally – of control of the sport.

Last week the World Motor Sport Council issued an extraordinary change to F1’s governance procedure, empowering Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone to over-rule, if necessary, decisions reached by the existing governance. Essentially, they could ignore the earlier voting down by
the F1 Commission of Ecclestone’s proposed cheaper independent ‘client’ engine, the instrument with which Ecclestone hopes to bust the hybrid engine manufacturers’ hold on F1.

The WMSC decision is the latest in a long-running power play and just the visible part of the iceberg. Many apparently unconnected events are only so on the surface and in reality are all part of the same game.

Please read this arlicle from Motorsport Magazine to get a glimpse of the games and shows that happens alongside the racing in F1.

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1...vs-marchionne/

The July meeting between (Ecclestone ally) Niki Lauda and (friend of
Mosley and Ecclestone) Mateschitz, apparently about a Mercedes engine
supply for Red Bull, was perhaps just for the sake of form, was never
realistically going to result in that. That widely publicised meeting –
ask yourself just why it was so widely publicised, why either side felt
the need to have it out there that they’d met – was merely to provide
the back story to the contrived Red Bull engine supply crisis.

With an apparent (but not real) Mercedes power unit supply in prospect
Red Bull gave notice to Renault to annul its contract (which ran until
the end of 2016) at the end of this year on the grounds of
under-performance. Except, they didn’t ever go through with the
annulment. Did it ever have any intention to? While all this apparent
engine supply crisis was going on, incidentally, the staff at Red Bull
Racing’s Milton Keynes factory had been told not to worry, that there
was a plan and the future was secure.

Lauda officially left it that Mateschitz should put a formal proposal to
Mercedes, but he never did. Funny that.

That gave Toto Wolff – the Mercedes team boss determined that the
partnership should never happen – time to convince the main Mercedes
automotive board (who inconveniently and bizarrely quite liked the idea)
that it would be a bad idea, as Red Bull was going to become the factory
Audi team somewhere down the line. That was enough to scare the board off.

Then there’s the apparent Ferrari deal that never was. Red Bull
publically placed Ferrari in a position where it was aggressively asked
for an impossible deal: the very same power units as in the Scuderia’s
own cars, with no compromise. Before any meaningful discussion between
the two parties had even taken place Mateschitz was making this demand.

For one thing it was unreasonable, verging on rudely disrespectful; for
another, once it was made, in Red Bull’s own publication, how could
Ferrari be seen to be being dictated to by a rival and a customer and
meekly agreeing? What loss of face would that have been, let alone the
possible embarrassment of a Red Bull-Ferrari repeatedly beating the
Ferrari? That deal was never going to happen – nor probably was it
intended to.

It now looks like Ferrari, just like Mercedes, had been played – walk-on
extras in a play-acted drama they knew nothing about. Finally, a bit of
noise about a possible Honda deal, made in the knowledge that Ron Dennis
had veto rights over that – and no way would Ron be repeating what he
sees as the mistake of Martin Whitmarsh in agreeing to supply a rival
(Brawn) to help them out, only for that rival to then out-perform
McLaren and run off with its engine partner. Again, surely a deal that Red Bull
knew was never going to happen, something put out just to shore up the
subterfuge.

In between the Ferrari and Honda speculation came the engine
manufacturers’ meeting where they were set to vote among themselves on
the FOM’s (Bernie’s) request that they halve the price of their engines.
That was a hugely provocative request, calculated to trigger Ferrari
(Marchionne) into using its veto to nix the idea. This played perfectly
into Bernie’s hands, for it finally brought Todt and the power of the
FIA onside with his aims. Which was probably what it had been designed
(by Max) to do in the first place.

A few moments later Todt was explaining how he had reached the
conclusion that really for the sake of F1’s sustainability, unless the
manufacturers would agree to drastically reduce the price of the hybrid
power units, then he would support the proposal of an alternative
independent ‘client’ engine that would be simpler, vastly cheaper and
made competitive through a balance of power equivalency formula. The
independent teams were endangered by the prices and so even though the
FIA can have nothing to do with commercial matters, he felt justified in
acting in that the FIA was responsible for the sustainability of the
championship.