by Max Mosley
The political situation was further complicated by the emergence of a new engine technology. Until the late 1970s, everyone, including the car manufacturers, used a 3.0 litre engine without supercharging. The car manufacturers’ engines usually had 12 cylinders, while the UK teams’ Cosworth DFV engine had eight. The 12s were more powerful but were also heavier and used more fuel, and there was a sort of balance provided the rules were not changed to favour one type of engine over the other.
The rules also allowed a Formula One car to use a 1.5 litre supercharged engine as an alternative to the 3.0 litre naturally aspirated engine. However, in the l970s a new form of supercharging was emerging using waste energy from the exhaust. It was known as ‘turbocharging’ and promised much greater efficiency plus, at least in theory, a lot more power. In 1977, Renault appeared in Formula One with the first 1.5 litre turbocharged engine. Initially, the UK teams did not take the new technology seriously, and there was much amusement at the British Grand Prix when Renault were seen using a broom to put out small fires in their exhaust system. But it gradually became clear that further development would result in the 1.5 litre turbocharged engine outclassing the current naturally aspirated engines and taking over Formula One.
The debate about engines continued throughout 1979. Apart from the danger of all naturally aspirated engines becoming obsolete, we stood against an equivalence formula as a matter of principle, saying that one type of engine was bound eventually to prove the best. Once that happened, one of the technologies would be obsolete and a lot of money would have been wasted. But, more fundamentally, the UK teams and Cosworth lacked the resources to develop turbocharging.
On 7 September 1979 at Monza, FISA and FOCA jointly announced that the conflicts of the previous eight months were over. Peace had broken out and there would be a major technical meeting the following month to discuss engine rules. We were arguing for naturally aspirated engines only; the manufacturers wanted rule stability – in other words, to continue to allow both types of engine. For FOCA, this was life-threatening. In those days, most of the capital of a UK Formula One team was tied up in its engines. If these were rendered obsolete by new technology, many FOCA teams would be in financial difficulty and without the money to pay for entirely new engines.
While all this was going on, it was generally acknowledged that cornering speeds were dangerously high. Everyone wanted to slow the cars, but British teams wanted to do this by limiting engine power and tyres, the continental teams by banning the UK teams’ aerodynamic devices. According to FIA regulations, rule changes in Formula One needed two years’ notice but this could be bypassed if change was necessary on safety grounds. FISA claimed that slowing the cars was a safety measure and rule changes to achieve this could be brought in at short notice. We pointed out that, on this basis, virtually all rule changes could be said to be for safety because their purpose was almost invariably to limit performance in order to keep speeds under control. However, early in 1980 FISA announced summarily that it was going to ban skirts, a key aerodynamic device for the FOCA teams, from 1981, citing safety reasons.
By now it was becoming clear to every British team that the combination of FISA and the big continental car companies was a threat to their survival. Like Cosworth, all were independent businesses that had to make a profit to survive. They did not have the resources to deal with rapid changes, in particular those that might result in obsolete equipment and capital written off. It seemed to me that the best way to counter this potentially fatal risk would be to challenge Balestre’s personal authority and thus reduce FISA’s influence. Bernie agreed and we began.
Balestre’s fondness for the limelight provided our first avenue of attack in March 1980 at the South African Grand Prix. He always liked to go on the podium with the winning drivers after the race, which we saw as profiling and an infringement of the rights of the race sponsor who had paid the organiser to use the podium for promotion. The marshal in charge of the podium was a large South African working for the race sponsor and I explained our problem to him: Balestre always insists on taking part despite the drivers’ annoyance and distracts attention from the sponsor’s promotional girls.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll stop him,’ said the marshal. ‘You won’t be able to, he’s a very determined man,’ I said. The marshal swelled visibly. ‘Leave it to me,’ he replied. Having lit the fuse, I went back to the nearby Kyalami Ranch hotel to enjoy a cup of tea in the garden and await the results of my mischief-making. Sure enough, Balestre appeared, red in the face with fury. ‘You won’t believe what happened,’ he said (not for one moment suspecting me). ‘They stopped me going on the podium by force!’
‘How awful – that’s outrageous,’ I replied, very sympathetically.
Shortly after this, the FISA and FIA meetings were due to be held in Rio de Janeiro. We decided that the time had come for a full-on confrontation with Balestre. I travelled to Rio without Bernie, who was getting on with Formula One business back home. The night before the FISA Executive Committee (soon to be renamed World Motor Sport Council), I got hold of a list of all the committee members’ rooms and slid an eight-page attack on Balestre, and the way he was running the sport, under each door.
It had the expected effect. He was livid. Next day he opened the meeting by saying there had been an affront to the dignity of the FISA, to which I responded that it would not have been necessary had he conducted himself properly. It was a very stormy meeting and for the first time he couldn’t keep control. We had a clear case that the proposed ban on skirts was illegal and, as Balestre realised he was in difficulty, his arguments became increasingly bizarre. He said all members of FOCA had their personal private jet aircraft; he revealed that he had persuaded Mercedes to enter Formula One (both claims were completely untrue); and that his conscience forced him to ban the skirts. He finished by saying my drivers’ letters against a ban were all extracted under duress.
Balestre lost two of the votes in the Executive Committee but, with a Plenary Conference of the FISA the next day, he was able to get the decisions reversed, saying he would resign if he failed. I did not have the right to speak there so was at a disadvantage, but the chairman of the RAC, Sir Clive Bossom, spoke up against Balestre. He was very effective and loyal in defending what he rightly saw as British interests.
For the first time, Balestre’s authority was seriously under threat, but he nevertheless got his way by playing the system against us. They passed a ban on skirts for 1981, the introduction of a fuel-flow formula (later rescinded) and, surprisingly, a 30 kg increase in the minimum weight, something that would be very helpful to the manufacturers’ teams with their heavier engines but bad for our side. The Italian delegate, Stefano Marsaglia, who also represented the car industry in FISA, had unexpectedly proposed this. I later learned it was Marco Piccinini, the Ferrari team manager, who called him from Italy the night before and persuaded him to give it a try without really expecting it to pass. An inquiry into the South African podium incident was also established, demonstrating that even quite childish (if entertaining) provocations were taken very seriously by Balestre and could have a significant effect.
The Rio measures abolished FOCA’s seat on the FISA Executive Committee, as well as seats as of right for the major sporting countries. I pointed out that this would give Balestre absolute power because he could circulate a list of candidates among his allies at the next election and co-ordinate the vote to guarantee victory for himself and his cronies. Conversely, anyone who annoyed him and was left off the list would not be elected. Combining this with the threat of taking away an important international race or rally would be enough to keep all countries in line.
We launched our second offensive at the 1980 Belgian Grand Prix with FOCA’s announcement that, in future, cars and paperwork must be checked in the garages and our mechanics would no longer push the cars to the organiser’s bay. Ferrari, who were always a ‘légaliste’ team, did not join us and pushed their cars as required
but all FOCA teams stayed put. Also, several of our teams told their drivers not to go to the compulsory drivers’ briefing immediately before the race, and the stewards duly fined them for non-attendance.
We told the drivers not to pay on the grounds that making them attend a briefing just before the race was distracting and unsafe. The dispute went through appeal, but this was really a dispute about who ran Formula One and Balestre was not ready to back down. The end result was that the drivers’ licences were suspended for non-payment of fines, which meant they were barred from the next race, the 1980 Spanish Grand Prix. We arrived in Madrid knowing there was going to be a confrontation and it began with negotiations behind the scenes.
In the early morning of the first day of practice, Balestre came to my room in his pyjamas saying we needed to talk. We agreed to meet shortly downstairs and I said I would alert Bernie. Balestre arrived in the hotel lobby for our meeting, to which he had also invited Marco Piccinini. Ferrari were traditionally FIA loyalists and Marco was greatly respected as a politician and strategist upon whose wisdom Balestre leaned heavily.
By now it was about 7am and there was pressure to find a solution before practice, which was due to start shortly at the circuit. Our objective was to engineer a split in the governing body and we knew this would become more probable if the race were threatened. A cancellation would cause internal and external problems for the FIA but would not be without cost to our side. Balestre indicated that he had a core group of supporters in the FIA on whom he could rely absolutely, and backed this up by producing a handwritten list.
We were all sitting at a small table in the hotel lobby and Balestre put his list on the table with all his other papers. Bernie and I knew the list was an invaluable weapon, identifying potential dissidents within the FIA and which ones we might usefully approach and those best to leave alone. When talking in front of people whose English was not perfect, we often used cockney rhyming slang. ‘You do the Cain and Abel,’ said Bernie, ‘and I’ll hoist it’ – meaning, you tip over the table and I’ll get the list, which, of course, Balestre did not understand.
I stood up, ‘accidentally’ upending the table, and while I stood there apologising profusely, Bernie joined Balestre on hands and knees solicitously helping him gather his papers. When the papers were finally back on the table the list had vanished. Balestre was in despair. He kept repeating: ‘Ma liste, ma liste, merde! Où est ma liste?’ We helped him hunt for it but without success. It was safely in Bernie’s pocket.
There was no agreement and Balestre remained in the hotel while Bernie and I went to the circuit. We arrived to find the media in a state of agitation and the teams wanting to know what was going on. The Jarama circuit belonged to the main Spanish motoring club, the Real Automóvil Club de España, whose chairman was the Marqués de Cubas. RACE had been one of the FIA’s founding clubs in 1904 and was still very important internationally, but had delegated the power to run motor sport in Spain to another organisation, the Federación Española de Automovilismo (FEA).
The Marqués de Cubas was at the circuit, as were the representatives of the FEA. We invited both to a meeting in the cramped caravan that Bernie had hired for the race. Gérard Crombac, a French journalist and friend of Balestre, came in saying he was the FISA observer and must attend the meeting. Bernie ejected him and I stood in the doorway, telling him in front of the press that he could observe all he liked, but from the paddock – he was not coming in the caravan. With a mass of press outside and no air conditioning inside, the meeting got nowhere. We were adamant the drivers would race, with or without their licences. The FEA was just as adamant that no suspended team or driver could start practice until the fines had been paid.
Importantly, Spain wanted the race to go ahead, so did the Marqués de Cubas, who had the support of the Spanish establishment. So he announced that the Grand Prix was back under RACE’s jurisdiction, which would then itself authorise the race. FISA and their FEA allies disagreed, and insisted that the revocation was invalid without the consent of the FIA General Assembly (which was technically correct). The FISA representatives were invited to leave the circuit and, when they protested, the Guardia Civil appeared and escorted them to the gates (‘at gunpoint’, according to some excitable reports). Practice then went ahead without Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Renault, the three so-called légaliste teams. In the absence of the FISA, the event was to be supervised by the Spanish officials the FEA had originally appointed but under RACE’s authority.
Back in the hotel, Balestre held an emergency meeting with the representatives of the légaliste teams. Marco Piccinini was there for Ferrari, Jean Sage for Renault and Pier Luigi Corbari for Alfa Romeo. These were the so-called grandi costruttori, known as the ‘grandis’ by us (although some British journalists irritatingly turned the word into ‘grandees’). They gathered in Balestre’s room and were deep into their discussions when one of them noticed water coming under the door. He had been running his bath and, in the excitement of the news from the circuit, had completely forgotten about it.
The flooding of Balestre’s suite was a distraction compounded by an offer from Bernie to Alfa Romeo that if they broke ranks and raced with the FOCA teams, they could start the race from the front row of the grid. After all, he told them, as they had not been able to practise, it was only fair. A front-row start was beyond Alfa’s wildest dreams at the time. To make good on his promise, Bernie would have had to secure the written agreement of the teams and officials. Typical Bernie, he no doubt thought he’d need to worry about this only if Alfa said yes and, whatever happened, he would at least have caused a diversion.
As soon as he heard of Bernie’s offer, Marco made an emergency call to Enzo Ferrari, who was then 82 years old but still fully involved in the politics. Ferrari, in turn, called the president of Alfa Romeo. By now it was Sunday morning, but they had to make sure there were no defections from the légaliste teams. Ferrari’s early morning call was successful and the race went ahead without the three manufacturers’ teams. None of the parent companies was prepared to race in an event that FISA had declared illegal. Even though their officials were locked out of the circuit and were now making their announcements from a Madrid hotel, the international motor racing establishment was still powerful. Alan Jones won the race for Williams.
By chance, a major FIA meeting had been scheduled in Lagonissi, a resort near Athens, for the day after the race. Faced with a serious rebellion, Balestre wanted to show the FIA delegates a letter from Renault saying they would never join FOCA and also asked Ferrari to resign from our association. Marco managed to get the letter from Renault and rushed with it to the airport where Balestre’s plane was about to leave for Athens. He had to persuade airport staff to knock on the plane’s door and get it opened so he could deliver the letter.
Marco had already explained to Balestre that he had no authority to sign a resignation letter on behalf of Ferrari. Back in Maranello, Enzo Ferrari was saying: ‘Don’t let’s be too quick to go against Bernie – after all, he’s the one who produces the money.’ This was certainly true – in the eight years since Bernie got involved, the prize fund had increased by a factor of ten. A few days later, Ferrari signed the resignation letter addressed to FOCA and sent his chauffeur to the local post office with instructions to register it, obtain the receipt then have the post office staff hand it back. As a result, although registered and officially posted, it was never dispatched. When Balestre visited Maranello a short time later, Marco was able to show him the resignation and the receipt for the registered letter to FOCA, yet still maintain Enzo Ferrari’s good relations with Bernie.
Having run what we knew the FIA would call a pirate race, Bernie and I thought it imperative we should turn up at the FIA meeting in Greece the next day, despite not being invited and having made no plans to attend. We went to the airport, hoping to find a flight to Athens. It was about 8pm and there were no flights to Athens or anywhere close. Bernie wandered off into the bowels of
the airport while I waited with our luggage, and he came back to say he’d found an American who was about to fly to Saudi Arabia in his private jet and had agreed to drop us off in Athens. Bernie had persuaded him it was on the way. What his pilots thought was not recorded.
We arrived at the FIA hotel about 25 miles from Athens in the early hours with the help of a taxi driver we found asleep at the airport. At 9am we walked into the dining room where the FIA delegates were having breakfast and found the atmosphere electric. They were all discussing the events of the previous day in Spain, which almost all had been following on television. The last thing they expected was that we would suddenly appear. Yet we were not entirely unwelcome – we had allies among the delegates, some of them even on Balestre’s lost list of his supposed supporters.
Armed with that list, we had a good idea which delegates we might get at but were hindered by our exclusion from the meetings. We needed to find out what was going on, and knew that Balestre and his officials would be in constant touch with their staff and lawyers back in Paris. Other than the odd person-to-person phone call, the only way they could communicate was by telex, so we acquired a copy of every telex they sent or received from a very helpful young lady who operated the hotel’s telex machine. We learned that Balestre had persuaded the FIA Committee to rule that the Spanish Grand Prix would not count for the World Championship and to confirm that FOCA would no longer be represented on the FISA Executive Committee.