Formula One splits like Indycar

[overninethousands]

http://8w.forix.com/fiasco-introduction-timeline.html

Whatif the same thing happened to Formula One ?

Some basic elements
The FOCA-FISA war climaxed in 1980-82
FISA is the automotive federation (Ferrari, Renault, Alfa Romeo) - the turbo teams.
FOCA is Balestre and Mosley F1 teams - March, Brabham, Tyrrell, McLaren, Williams, Lotus - ground effect.

The first split happened in 1979 - Dan Gurney modeled CART on Bernie Ecclestone FOCA.
The second split had Tony George taking Indianapolis away from CART and creating IRL around it

Now if the Indycar split was (roughly) applied to F1,it would boil down to Monaco slamming the door right in the middle of the Ecclestone-Mosley war against Balestre, in the 1980-83 era.

It happened that Monaco Automobile Club (ACM) was managed by Michel Boer. In the early 80's Boeri and Balestre clashed heavily over TV rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Boeri

So the year is 1982. On May 23, 1982 the crazy OTL race (Patrese...) goes bonkers and tragic. This throw Boeri and Monaco into the FISA-FOCA war and since Boeri hates Balestre, he goes on Ecclestone / Mosley side.
The three - Boeri, Ecclestone, Mosley - decides to create a second championship.

There was nearly a split early 1981

A notable point of the dispute was the formation of a short lived "World Federation of Motorsport" in November 1980 to stage a rival championship. The FOCA teams staged a Formula One race under the WFMS banner in South Africa in February 1981, won by Carlos Reutemann in a Williams-Ford. However, the lack of major factory team attendance, the resulting poor fan support and limited media coverage meant that the viability of the rival series was compromised immediately.[3] A grudging settlement was reached thereafter which allowed the FOCA teams to return to the "FISA" world championship in time for the first race in March.

Now 18 months later, Monaco adds its weight to the rebels.

What will happen ?

 

[overninethousands]

no taker ? maybe f1 is not very popular over there. ok then...

 

[Post]

I do like F1, but have no idea what would have happened.

Did you know there is a Michel Vaillant comic with a scenario of a F1-split?

 

[ghilonif]

Now, the Foca-Fisa war is not my area of expertise, but there was another chance of a split in 2009 with the Fota, they even released a calendar. About this 1982 split, it might even work for a while, but the part involved were not that self destructive as George and Cart. Maybe we see Ferrari joining the group C craze, which perhaps is not destroyed willingly by Ecclestone. Or maybe it is like the Cart/Irl, with the series as a whole barely starting to return to his former glory after more than two decades.

 

[overninethousands]

I have some ideas but not enough for a full-blown TL. Part of the FOCA-FISA rift also related to the turbo / ground effect era.
Ecclestone and FOCA were mostly British teams (led by Colin Chapman) that hoped ground effect cars could counter the turbo huge power. Well, it did not happened - the difference in hp was too huge (Cosworth 600 hp, turbo: 900 to 1500 hp !)
Now if the split happened along those lines, then the Balestre / FISA teams would be the turbo ones, (Renault, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, perhaps Honda and BMW) hence that championship would pretty much look like OTL F1 1983-1988.
On the other side, if Ecclestone banned turbo, then it might be like Indycar or F3000, that is, Cosworth for everyone. With the same engine and limits in power,then the british teams would try tweaking aerodynamics. Colin Chapman ground effect, of course, but Tyrrell had their six wheeler, Brabham had the turbine car, and what's more, in 1982 Williams had the FW8D.

I'm quite sure Ron Dennis' McLaren would find another spectacular trick to compete with these (Ferrari very own six wheeler had the four rear wheels on the same axe, side by side if you prefer. McLaren could borrow that trick).

Basically those cars

Tyrrell P.34

Williams FW8D

Brabham BT-46B "fan car"

Lotus 79 wing car.

Say what you want, but both Formula Ones would be awesome. Raw power vs aerodynamics. 1500 hp vs six wheelers.

 

[ghilonif]

On the other hand, there is the issue of safety. Fia banned skirts in all of his competitions after 1982.

 

[SwampTiger]

Baah! A pox on both their houses!

Dump turbos and ground effects! Toss Ecclestone into the Channel. Limit speed and power by limiting tire contact patch. Fix the God awful tracks. All that Armco! I hate Monte Carlo and street courses. All those blind corners and channeled lines. Dull racing.

 

[overninethousands]

The turbos made it even more dangerous. Stick with a Cosworth, impose power limits (550 hp) and maybe it will be a bit less dangerous.

Found this about the Boeri / Monaco crisis

Michel Boeri had been a strong supporter of the GPI and WCR initiatives of the seventies, both trying to rally the organisers to form a united front against the demands of the FOCA, but now, as his lucrative American television contract was due to run out at the end of 1983, he found himself directly opposed to the FISA. He had been guilty of upsetting its president’s grand concept of the FIA being the sole owner of the new FIA F1 World Championship and with it the rights to have it televised all over the world – which, as you will remember, were then transferred to the FOCA through the Concorde Agreement. Instead, Boeri had done a new five-year deal with the ABC starting 1984. Clearly enraged by the ACM’s self-supporting efforts, Balestre axed the Monaco GP from the 1984 calendar and threatened to revoke the club’s FIA membership, which also put the Monte Carlo Rally in danger.

The seeds of the conflict had been sown in 1982 when the ACM became a vocal opponent against Balestre’s ten-point plan for 1983. Miffed about his former friend’s backstabbing, Balestre argued that no-one – not even the organiser of the most glamorous and most productive race of the year in terms of promotional value – would be allowed to ignore the fact that the FIA owned the media rights to the F1 World Championship. Unimpressed, Boeri stated that he had in fact consulted Bernie Ecclestone, the result being the FOCA chairman’s approval in writing. In fact, the signing parties of the new Monaco GP television deal were the ABC and the FOCA. Boeri then played his sympathy card by announcing that the ACM had even gone as far as buying back their American television rights from the ABC to sell them on to the FOCA.

Balestre would have none of it. First of all, he claimed that it should have been a three-year deal to put it in line with the other contracts, all of them conventiently running out at the same time the first Concorde Agreement was to expire. Secondly, he argued that the FISA might have wanted to make a deal with another American network. By this he implied that Ecclestone had been wrong not to consult the FIA before doing his deal with the ACM. And to make matters absolutely clear, Balestre issued a peculiar statement. It said that “some have suggested” that Balestre had been turned into an Ecclestone puppet, and that everyone who expected that Balestre would budge under Ecclestone’s pressure was wrong to think so. In its strong denial the statement merely went on to confirm that the two had formed a special relationship.

The ACM was undeterred as it started a series of lawsuits against the FIA, effectively testing the FIA’s claim to sole ownership of the championship’s media rights. This caused the issue to escalate to the offices of president Mitterand and prince Rainier. In the end, three months before the 1985 Monaco GP, the ACM had to accept defeat when the French Supreme Court refused to force the FIA to put the Monaco GP back on their calendar. To save his race, and the fate of the Monte Carlo Rally as well, Boeri handed over all media rights to the FIA and agreed to cease their court cases and pay for the FIA’s legal costs. Although he hated the fact that the Monaco GP would be increasingly sanitised into a uniform F1 event – a fear that would indeed become reality over the years – he explained his defeat as a peace treaty. In fact, not for long Balestre and Boeri were friends again, and after he had acknowledged that Bernie Ecclestone’s commercial accomplishments had been an enormous benefit to the sport as a whole, and especially its general prosperity, Boeri became a FISA and later FIA vice-president.

In a nutshell, the Monaco crisis came after the Concorde agreement between Ecclestone and Balestre, in 1981. Hence Boeri was mostly alone, since Ecclestone and Balestre had settled the question of TV rights between FISA and FOCA.
Now change the date in bold to 1980 or 1981 and Boeri fight will erupt right in the middle of the FISA-FOCA war.
Boeri will be forced to pick a side.
And if Boeri sides with Ecclestone, then Monaco ACM can slams the F1 door and leave Balestre and FISA into a position similar to CART in 1997 - "We have everything but the most prestigious race of the year"
Having Monaco on board could change OTL FOCA failure of early 1981.

This needs some refining but I'm tempted to write a TL if anybody is interested.

 

[ghilonif]

Monaco is the crown jewel of the season but it's not the Indy 500. It's Formula one, not Formula Monaco, and F1 could still go on. Without British teams, there you have the problem.