by Terry Lovell
The issue was the number of cars on the grid and the clash was with the powerful Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM), the organisers of the Monaco Grand Prix and the Monte Carlo Rally. The club insisted there should be no more than 16 starters on the grid, although the previous year the number had been increased to 18 after forceful representation by the teams. The following season, at the Spanish Grand Prix, Ecclestone and Max Mosley, a principal of the March team who would become Ecclestone’s closest ally in the turbulent years to come, had a meeting in a Madrid hotel to persuade the newly appointed president of the club – a young, bright lawyer called Michel Boeri – to agree a limit of 26. It ended with Boeri acknowledging that there was no rational reason for the number to be limited to 16 and that the Monaco Grand Prix, just two weeks away, would run with 26 cars.
However, the teams arrived in Monaco to discover that senior officials of the ACM would agree to 22 cars but not as many as 26. It was a political salvo, fully supported, it was suspected, by the FIA, intended to let the constructors know that it was the organisers who called the shots. A hurried meeting of the teams decided that it would be 26 cars or none, and the message was relayed to senior club officials by the French-speaking Mosley. The unity was such that even the French team, Matra, stood solid with the constructors. But the ACM hardened the stand-off by deciding to impound the constructors’cars. The gates to an underground garage, where the teams’ cars had been parked, were locked, and guarded by several police officers to ensure that they remained so.
As the spectators began to fill the streets and the time for the practice sessions neared, the constructors responded by refusing to take part. Eventually, Boeri arrived to reassure them that if they went ahead with the sessions, the number would be sorted out. No deal, said Ecclestone. The number first, then the practice sessions. Boeri argued that it was necessary for the FIA representative to sign the document endorsing 26 cars and that he couldn’t be found. No signature, no cars, said Ecclestone. Within half an hour the paper had been signed and the cars were on their way to the first practice session – but not before Ecclestone, in the cockpit of a Brabham being pushed by mechanics, managed to drive over the foot of a policeman. The race, won by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Beltoise in a BRM, started with 25 cars on the grid.
The constructors, with Ecclestone at the centre of the ring, had begun to flex their muscles.
The first F1CA meeting Ecclestone attended was held in a double bedroom at the Excelsior hotel – its budget couldn’t run to a suite in those days – near London’s Heathrow Airport, a location mutually convenient to the constructors and continental teams. His attitude appeared to be one of extraordinary deference towards his colleagues from McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari, BRM, Tyrrell, Surtees, Williams, Matra and March. Frenchman Gérard ‘Jabby’ Crombac, a motor sport magazine editor and a technical adviser to Matra, who attended the meeting as its representative, recalled that Ecclestone kept a low profile, claiming that he was simply happy to listen ‘because you are all so much more experienced than me’, a statement of astonishing humility for someone who believed he was inferior to no man. No less surreal is the imagery created by Crombac’s claim that Ecclestone’s sole contribution to the proceedings was a willingness to pour the tea. Crombac’s opinion in later years was that this was merely an example of Ecclestone’s sardonic wit.
They were soon to see an example of his entrepreneurial flair, which, even though Ecclestone himself couldn’t have been aware of it at the time, would prove to be his first step in exploiting the commercial potential of Formula One. There are at least two accounts of the way in which it came about. According to Brabham team manager Keith Greene, it was born of the constructors’ frustration at the way Andrew Ferguson had been negotiating the costs of the overseas transportation arrangements. For personal reasons, he was also pressing hard for the F1CA office to be transferred to Switzerland, a less than popular proposal as the overwhelming majority of the teams were based in England.
Ecclestone recognised the opportunity to usurp Ferguson – and seized it at an F1CA meeting held during the 1972 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami. When the agenda came to any other business, Ecclestone, said Greene, walked round the table and placed a sealed envelope before each team boss. ‘Bernie told them to take five and read what was inside.’ What they read immediately attracted their interest. Ecclestone had calculated how much he could save each team on overseas transportation costs, especially long-haul trips – ‘I think it was £4500 per car on every long-haul trip’ – through a package deal he had negotiated with a freight transport company, and which of course included a profit for himself.
The teams, most of whom were living hand to mouth, accepted his proposal without hesitation. It was agreed that, by way of payment for his services, he would receive two per cent of the prize fund – in the early seventies it was in the region of no more than £40,000 – that he would negotiate on their behalf with the organisers. The commission, suggested by Max Mosley, was attractive to the teams on the grounds that as they didn’t know what they were going to get, they wouldn’t miss it. Besides, there was no money in the F1CA’s coffers to remunerate him in any other way. Its only income was a subscription fee that was rarely paid on time, putting the organisation’s finances in a general state of uncertainty. The commission – later increased to four and then eight per cent – would come to represent a substantial sum as Ecclestone the shrewd negotiator proceeded to persuade the organisers to agree contractual terms ever more favourable to the teams. By the time the constructors had left the Kyalami Ranch hotel, which, incidentally, Ecclestone would reportedly buy in 1978 for an undisclosed sum, he had the constructors’ full support, said Greene.
The second account came from John Surtees, who survived in Formula One for eight years, until 1978, before a costly legal battle with a main sponsor forced him to close down his team. Ecclestone, said Surtees, believed that he could do better than Ferguson in negotiating more profitable ‘start’ and prize-purse deals with the organisers. At an F1CA meeting, ‘Bernard stood up and said, “One moment, this is going nowhere. I will better your lot. I will guarantee a better deal [with the organisers].” He actually quoted a figure he would go for out of which he would take a certain percentage. That was it. From that moment, Bernie represented the constructors.’
Whatever the accurate record, Ferguson’s role as the F1CA’s secretary came to an end. He was sacked and replaced by Ecclestone’s nomination, a former RAF officer and manager of the Red Arrows flying team, Peter Macintosh – nicknamed ‘Overcoat’ by Ecclestone – who, although without any experience of motor racing, was employed for his administrative ability. Ecclestone then set about putting into operation his package-deal proposal, with London-based freight transport company Cazaly Mills & Co, from whom he received a lucrative percentage of the F1CA business. He went on to buy the company and then dispose of it, claiming the company had too many internal problems. He took with him one of the company’s key personnel, Alan Woollard, who would play an executive role in the setting up of FOCA World Travel, through which Ecclestone organised chartered air travel and hotel accommodation, a highly lucrative new market which it monopolised without threat. Ecclestone’s method of pricing other costs, though, left at least one team manager somewhat bewildered.
During the late seventies McLaren’s team manager, Alistair Caldwell, notified the rest of the teams that he was organising a week’s test session at Kyalami. The cost of hiring the track for the week was £1000, plus £200 per day for the marshals. As was his usual practice, he informed the teams of the booking and invited them to take part to spread the costs. But Teddy Mayer, who owned McLaren with Tyler Alexander, and the other team bosses were, said Caldwell, persuaded by Ecclestone to go along with the package deal that he was pulling together.
During the week at Kyalami, a senior member of the Brabham team informed Caldwell of McLaren’s share of the bill. The cost per car was $6000. ‘When I asked him what it was for, he said i
t was for the hire of the track and the marshals. I told him to piss off. I knew how much it had cost, because I had rented the circuit, and it cost £1000 for the whole week, plus £200 a day for the marshals. We refused to pay what Ecclestone was asking, because we had already paid the bill. I told them [the other team managers] but they wouldn’t listen. They still paid up. They never asked [Ecclestone]. That was Bernie.’ With at least 20 cars at the test session, it meant, based on Caldwell’s figures, a potential profit of $120,000. Ecclestone scathingly rejected Caldwell’s claims. ‘Why would I ask [for the money] if he had already paid the bill? A potential profit of $120,000? That is all shit. Without any possible shadow of doubt.’
The constructors were delighted that Ecclestone had the time and enthusiasm to represent their interests. Peter Warr, manager of Team Lotus, commented: ‘If someone had asked me to go and negotiate with 12 or 14 different race organisers and run Team Lotus, I would have said forget it. And that was the same for everybody else.’ But Ecclestone was a businessman first and a racer second. Cutting deals was no burden to him, more the very elixir of life.
He hadn’t been long in his new role when the F1CA managed to obtain a copy of an FIA balance sheet, which showed their calendar fees – in those days it would have been in the order of £2000 to £3000 – but, far more alarmingly, just how much the organisers were making out of individual deals with the teams, each of whom had been told during negotiations that it was in their best interests to keep the details confidential. The constructors were incensed by the level of profits enjoyed by the FIA and the organisers compared to their rewards. Said a former team boss: ‘When everyone saw what everyone was getting, how much the organisers were getting and how much the FIA was taking, the teams turned round and said: “Hang on a second, who is this being run for?” When … it was discovered that a very small part went to them, they said: “Oi, oi!”’ Newcomers such as John Surtees were particularly angry, claiming that they were being forced to meet much of their costs out of other business activities. Even Ecclestone complained that he was financing Brabham out of his own pocket to the tune of £80,000 per year.
During mid-1972 Ecclestone began a series of meetings with organisers to negotiate a massive increase in the prize purse, which since the mid-sixties had stood at about £5400 a race (paid in Swiss francs, which was considered to be the most stable currency at the time). He not only wanted it increased to £88,000 a race but also for the F1CA to be responsible for its distribution. Similarly, he wanted the F1CA to have control of the ‘start’ money to ensure more equitable distribution. Much alarmed, the organisers turned for rescue to the FIA’s Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI), which led that November to the formation of an organisation called Grand Prix International (GPI) and the emergence of a negotiating triumvirate headed by Dutchman Henri Treu. It was the brief of Treu and his two colleagues – Martin Pfundner and Herman Schmitz – to negotiate on behalf of the organisers in the heroic hope of persuading Ecclestone to agree to more acceptable fees.
Commentators at the time believed, in fact, that the combined authority of the organisers, under Treu’s leadership, would prove too great for the indolent ‘garagistes’. A key figure, it was forecast, would be Enzo Ferrari, who allegedly had always been indifferent about joining the F1CA. Once he sided with the organisers, the constructors’ new-found militancy would soon crumble. The organisers also believed they had in Treu the right man to take on Ecclestone. He was something of a maverick character himself, whose tendency to make decisions without going through the bureaucratic channels had led to his dismissal from the CSI six months earlier.
Others were inclined to another view, predicting that what the organisers saw as a strength would prove a serious weakness. An executive of a major sponsor described Treu as being ‘too radical, too confrontational. His attitude was “we’ll teach these constructors a lesson.” With someone like Ecclestone that attitude simply won’t work.’ Sure enough, Ecclestone found Treu’s autocratic style so grating that it was not long before he was refusing to negotiate with him and his colleagues, who, incidentally, had a practice of passing notes to one another. Rather carelessly, they would be thrown in a wastepaper basket at the end of each meeting, only to be retrieved later by Ecclestone. Unwisely, the Dutchman attempted to circumvent Ecclestone by approaching the constructors individually with offers based on their crowd-pulling appeal. With the constructors now very much aware of their strength in unity, it was a ploy doomed to fail. Treu then attempted a no less desperate tactic. He tried to broaden the arena of conflict by getting the CSI to introduce a new rule that would allow Formula Two and Formula 5000 cars to race in Formula One.
The Royal Automobile Club (RAC), the organisers of the British Grand Prix – then known as the John Player Grand Prix – agreed, at the CSI’s behest, to announce the introduction of the new rule. It was hoped that, coming from such an influential body in their own country, it would have a measure of authority that would cause the constructors to rethink their position. Accordingly, the RAC issued a statement declaring that a clause had been inserted in the supplementary regulations to the 1973 Grand Prix: the purse would be £55,000, unless ‘another sum’ was agreed the next day. To pressure the constructors into accepting the purse, the clause added that, in order to be entitled to any financial benefit, entry forms also had to be received by the next day. The race, it was declared, would be open to all ‘single-seat racing cars complying with the coachwork and safety requirements prescribed for Formula One as may be agreed by the CSI to allow Formula Two and Formula 5000 cars to race if the Formula One quota of entrants fell short’.1 The F1CA’s response was indifferently defiant. If it happened, said Ecclestone, the race couldn’t be called a round of the World Championship series, so the constructors wouldn’t want to take part anyway. He then hit back with a warning from the constructors that unless organisers agreed to the F1CA’s financial terms, the CSI should not agree to sanction Grand Prix races.
Around the same time, Treu stepped up the propaganda campaign by enlisting the support of Graham Hill, world champion in 1962 and 1968, who, considered to be way past his best, was in his last season at Brabham. At the annual dinner and dance of Silverstone’s British Racing Drivers’ Club the previous November, Treu suggested to Hill that he should race under his own name. It seemed an unlikely prospect. Who would agree to bankroll such a team? Nevertheless, by the following March, Hill had secured a three-year £100,000 contract with tobacco manufacturers W. D. & H. O. Wills. The previous month it was announced that he had become the first entrant to agree terms with GPI, and that he had been retained as a roving ambassador to promote its aims. It was believed that, in return for Hill’s public support, Treu had used CSI influence to help bring off the highly lucrative deal with Wills.
Ecclestone was so angered by the alliance that it was believed he had tried to sabotage Hill’s plans by offering provisional F1CA membership to AVS if the company refused to sell Hill a car. It was an attractive offer: membership of the F1CA and entitlement to its collective transportation benefits was normally not considered until a team had been racing for a season to ensure it had the necessary financial backing and commitment. But AVS declined the offer, and Hill made his debut as team boss and driver in an Embassy-backed AVS Shadow in the Spanish Grand Prix in April, which he failed to finish due to a problem with the brakes. It set the scene for much of the rest of the season, with his Tony Southgate-designed car suffering a series of minor faults and more seriously, chassis failure. He switched to a Lola for the 1974 season, which, with just two points, he ended by finishing eighteenth in the World Championship title race. Hill, one of the front-rank racers of the sixties and whose five wins at the Monaco Grand Prix with BRM and Lotus ensured his place in Formula One history, died on 29 November 1975, when a light aircraft he was piloting crashed in fog.
By now, the confrontation between the F1CA and Grand Prix International had become sufficiently hostile to cause Philip Morris Euro
pe, the manufacturers of Marlboro cigarettes, and Formula One’s biggest sponsor, to publicly express its concerns. At a lavish function in Geneva in January 1973 to announce the teams and drivers to run under the Marlboro banner, rugby-loving Englishman Ronnie Thomson, the company’s president of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said that motor racing ‘must take a long hard look at itself. It must become more professional and start to behave with the responsibility that its size and public interest dictate. It must work for the ultimate interest of the spectator, teams and drivers. Ultimately, their interests are the same as our own.’2 This comment was interpreted as a criticism of both the semi-professional attitude of the FIA hierarchy and the threatening approach of the F1CA, which, through Ecclestone’s aggressive efforts, was beginning to gain the upper hand. One by one the organisers made individual agreements with the F1CA, and the 17-race calendar for the 1973 season was secured on Ecclestone’s terms. Such was the establishment snobbery at the RAC that it refused to concede defeat to Ecclestone personally. Mosley, more their cup of tea, received a phone call from one of the senior negotiating figures informing him that, while the committee was quite prepared to agree to the F1CA’s terms and to do so with him, it was not willing to do so with Ecclestone, someone they continued to view as a loud and disagreeable second-hand-car dealer.