ACK! Double ACK!!
Formula One Racing, of which I am a great fan, is on the brink of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. 8 of the 10 teams are considering a rival race series next year because of a 40 million pounds (42 million euros) spending limit imposed by the FIA which sanctions Formula One Racing. I am not in favor of a spending limit for the teams. If F1 is the premier racing series there shouldn't be a spending limit at all. I understand why 8 of the teams feel that they need to take a stand against such a spending limit. I also understand that the two team that didn't breakaway with the other 8 teams feel they have a legal contract to race with the FIA and would be sued if they did try to breakaway. The two teams that are staying in F1 next year are smaller teams and they would benefit from a spending limit because such a spending limit would even up the playing field among the teams.
13 years ago in the USA almost the same thing happened with US open wheel racing between CART and the new (at the time) IRL. While looking up information about the CART/IRL split I found this information on the IRL Wiki:
"The split between the IRL and the CART governing body was extremely acrimonious, and both series greatly suffered because of it, as the fan base also split. The 'war' between competing groups of fans was most active on the Internet, especially on motorsports message boards, and tended to affect any attempts at impartial views of either racing series.
The most bitter point of conflict between Champ Car and the IRL was the Indianapolis 500, long considered the crown jewel of North American motorsports. After the beginning of the IRL in 1996, Tony George restricted entry of the starting 33 cars to 25 IRL cars from full-time IRL teams, with only eight other cars being permitted to start. In retaliation, CART scheduled what was supposed to become its new showcase event, the U.S. 500, at Michigan International Speedway on the same day, but it drew far less fan interest and was discontinued after its 1999 running. Although modified in 1999, the initial Indy 500 policy toward CART was held up as proof of George and the IRL's ill-intent towards CART.
In 1997, Tony George specified new technical rules for less expensive cars and "production based" engines that outlawed the CART-spec cars that had been the mainstay of the race since the late 1970s. For the next few years almost all of the CART teams and drivers did not compete in the race. While this situation allowed many American drivers to participate in an event they might otherwise have been unable to afford, the turbulent political situation and the absence of the many of the top IndyCar drivers, big-name sponsors and faster CART-spec cars cast something of a shadow over the race; it was certainly arguable that to the average fan the replacement of at least fairly-well-known foreign drivers by almost-unknown American ones was not perceived as a real gain.
The split ended with a unification in 2008"
I see the big losers in this fight are the fans. Monaco has said it will NOT run an F1 race next year unless Ferrari runs in that race. Ferrari has been in F1 for the whole 59 year history of the modern era of F1 since 1950 and is in the group of breakaway teams that has thumbed their noises at the FIA.
Monaco has been the crown jewel of F1 racing since 1950 and to lose that race would cause great problems for the FIA more than any other race they could lose that now fill the 18 race calendar. The Monaco Race holds the same standing in this fight that the Indy 500 did i the CART/IRL split. The FIA needs to read some history of racing series splits to see that they could cause great harm to open wheel racing on the world stage.
*crossing my fingers*....
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