MOTOR SPORT/Formula One: Red Bull have joined Ferrari in agreeing to extend Formula One's existing commercial agreement to 2012 and turning their backs on a rival series. "Red Bull Racing confirms that it has reached an understanding with FOA (Formula One Administration) to prolong the current Concorde Agreement from 2008 until 2012," the team announced yesterday.
The decision ends Ferrari's political isolation in the Grand Prix paddock where the other eight teams are still considering the carmakers' vision of a separate race calendar. It came as no surprise, however, as Red Bull are contracted to use Ferrari engines from next season. The Concorde Agreement between the teams, the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) and commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone's FOA expires at the end of 2007.
Team boss Christian Horner said Red Bull - owned by Austrian energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz - had simply acted as they saw fit. "This was a totally independent decision," he said. "We felt the timing was right to state our intentions. Hopefully, all the parties will get around the table in the near future, but we wanted to make a decision prior to being involved in a meeting that involved voting."
The carmakers - a core of Renault, BMW and Mercedes, with Toyota and Honda backing them, but not yet formally aligned - are due to get together with the teams at Hockenheim during this weekend's German Grand Prix. They are expected to finalise their own proposals for rule changes and how the sport should be run from 2008, with an emphasis on transparency and teams competing on equal terms.
A spokesman for the manufacturers, formerly grouped under the GPWC banner, said the group's strategy would not change as a result of the Red Bull decision. There was no immediate comment from the FIA or Ecclestone on Red Bull's position.
The sport is caught in a power struggle and the FIA, Ecclestone and Ferrari have been on one side with the manufacturers on the other in a battle for control of revenues and governance. Some see the threatened rival series as more of a bargaining ploy than serious intent, with the carmakers seeking the bulk of the revenues to make their teams self-financing.
FIAT-owned Ferrari, the sport's glamour team and the only ones to have been in Formula One since the first championship in 1950, agreed to extend the agreement in January in a surprise break with the other carmakers.
Meanwhile, David Coulthard has backtracked on his suggestion that Formula One drivers could go on strike over safety concerns.
"I don't think there's any risk in the drivers taking a strike," the Scot said at a Red Bull team function in Istanbul. Turkey is making its Grand Prix debut next month.
"Formula One is very well regulated, the safety has improved fantastically over the last 10 years and the only thing we've been working towards is improving testing safety."
Coulthard's comments came after he suggested, in a column for Scotland's Daily Record newspaper, that strike action could hit the second half of the season if the drivers' concerns were not addressed.
The drivers are due to meet Max Mosley, president of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) on August 1st in the south of France to discuss safety at private test sessions among other issues. The meeting depends on at least half of the drivers attending, however.
"At the moment I believe that a number of the drivers will fly together on the Monday after Budapest (the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 29th) to Cannes, and we'll meet him there," said Coulthard.
Coulthard created motor racing history at the weekend by making his mark on two continents in a matter of seconds. In promoting the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix, the Scot drove his Red Bull Racing car across the famous Bosphorous Bridge that spans Europe and Asia before returning to the president's palace in the city.
