15/05/2019
NEWS STORY
Despite a June deadline, it is increasingly clear that agreement on the post-2020 rules package is far from done, and at a time Christian Horner says that there are still a number of "sizeable elephants in the room", it is looking increasingly unlikely that there will be agreement until much later in the year. If then.
Only last weekend, it was clear that team bosses can't even agree on standardised parts, so what hope an amicable conclusion on such lofty matters as budget caps, prize money and bonuses anytime soon. Not forgetting Ferrari's all-important right of veto.
However, speaking at the annual MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit in New York, Liberty's chief executive Greg Maffei, a man known for singing from an alternate hymn sheet to the rest of the team, insisted that huge progress has been made
"I think huge progress has been made with the Concorde Agreement," he said.
"Sure there are issues to be debated," he added, in a masterpiece of understatement, "but Formula One has talked about putting cost caps in for fifteen years or more and when we first started talking with Chase and the team about putting a cost cap in, Formula One people scoffed.
"I think if you go and speak, and many of your investors do, to other teams, the scuttlebutt out there is that the cost cap is pretty much accepted," he insisted. "We are only tens of millions apart, not hundreds, and people are arguing about how the splits will work.
"But in general, the theory is that we are trying to create more race competition, more on track overtaking, more balanced spending with cost caps, more balanced pay-outs which are not quite as favourable for some of the traditional players but instead more favourable for the winners and those not in the top of the stack.
"All those things are generally accepted," he added. "We are moving towards some sort of a conclusion.
"What will be the catalytic event that brings it to a signing is perhaps less clear," he concluded, which some may see as his and F1's ideal caveat, "but I think generally we are going in a good direction."