18/05/2017
NEWS STORY
Introduced in the wake of the FISA-FOCA war of the late 70s - often referred to as 'FIASCO' - the Concorde Agreement, first produced in January 1981, has remained the bonding agent that has held the sport in place ever since.
Over the course of its six subsequent iterations, despite the threats, rows and fall-outs, the controversial and highly secret agreement has kept the sport on track.
However, with an eye on 2020, when the current Concorde Agreement runs out, FOM's new boss, Chase Carey, is seeking an alternative.
"Our goal is to create much more of a long-term partnership," he told Motorsport.com, "not a partnership that has a point in time that you go out and renegotiate the next eight-year partnership, that there's a continuum."
The American believes that the current arrangement has helped further the self-interest among the teams that continues to threaten the stability of the sport and its future growth.
"It creates gamesmanship," he said. "If you've got that point in time, you have people posturing and positioning, 'what can I get out of it?'.
"What I'd like to have is everybody's priority being continually looking three years down the road, not looking at a specific point in time. I think they all welcome getting there, but we've got to drive it.
"What we're doing is we're saying we're working as partners that compete on the track, but share a vision of where we're going as a sport, and share the benefits of doing that together.
"It's a sport that historically was a little bit every man for himself, and how do you game each other and the like, and that leads to 'one plus one is one and a half'," he insisted. "If you could pull together and figure out what is the right path forward for everybody, you make 'one plus one is three'. That's our goal, to change the culture of this sport, which has had some very unique aspects to it, and create a new culture. And I feel good about it so far, there's a real welcomeness to wanting to do that.
"There's no question of changing a culture that's been embedded for that long will take some time, but I think it's a transforming opportunity to really build a longer term, healthier relationship that benefits us both."
With the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull having already made their position clear regarding FOM's plans to restructure the prize money allocation system, including scrapping the various bonuses, FOM is already facing an uphill struggle as it looks ahead to 2020 and beyond.
All we can say as far as "changing the culture" is concerned, is 'good luck with that'.