Q & A with Ron Dennis on the new deal
McLaren chief Ron Dennis provides insight into the new deal agreed between the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association and Formula One's commercial rights holder - what it all means and how it came about.
Ron Dennis: "The five members of the GPMA now have a complete agreement. Throughout the last 48 hours, the lawyers representing the GPMA and FOA have been continuously meeting, and from the GPMA's point of view, we are now at the point where we are prepared to sign the document.
"We are just awaiting the final confirmation from Donald McKenzie of CVC - he is either on his way here, or if he is not, then we will be speaking to him in the next hour.
"What is very pleasing is that the GPMA have stayed together and acted in unity on a difficult and challenging Memorandum of Understanding. It is quite a complex document, and obviously once you start to focus on the small print, it becomes quite a laborious process.
"It was quite a productive two days, and hopefully it will be executed today and some press announcement will follow. All the GPMA members are now prepared to sign.
"This will constitute now the biggest single commercial resolution and will allow us to move forward and focus on the future of F1.
"It is a document everyone is happy with. Inevitably, in the final throes of the negotiation there have been compromises reached, and I think everybody, especially in the last two years, entered this period with a strong desire to get resolution."
Q: Is the deal a five-year deal or a 10-year deal?
Dennis: "It is inappropriate for me to pre-empt any of the content of the press release. I feel comfortable with what I said to you, but most of the other questions that you will want answered will probably be contained in the press release, if it is finally executed and if the release is issued.
"The important thing is that the five GPMA members have completely agreed, the document has now been executed, with our colleagues at CVC left to put their own signature to the paper."
Q: How did the deal get done over a Grand Prix weekend, when you are under so much pressure to deliver, rather than on a Wednesday in London?
Dennis: "This is a process that has been running for years, it has been running a long, long time. This meeting was preceded by myself and Professor [Burkhard] Goeschel (BMW executive board member) and CVC Representatives.
"We met in Jersey earlier this week, and at that meeting we were addressing 15 points that were outstanding on the MOU. We found resolution on most of them, and the document was going backwards and forwards for detailed drafting.
"Ultimately, because there are teams who desperately want stability in order to plan, there was a heightened desire to arrive at a point where we could all simultaneously sign a document in order to show to each other that we were together and focused.
"This document is only the first step to a [new] Concorde Agreement and Sporting and Technical Regulations, and there is a long, long way to go.
"It is important to remember that primarily, this is a document about 2008, it is the absolute cornerstone of the future Concorde Agreement, and therefore an extremely detailed document - but a long way from the extensive document that will be the Concorde Agreement.
"It just so happens that every time we meet away from the circuit, everyone has to travel significant distances to arrive at one point, and we are all spread around Europe, so at a Grand Prix we are all here, and at the stage we got here, we were not that far away.
"So it is easy to sign a document simultaneously, because we are all here. The core objective was a unified agreement with simultaneously signing.
"It has not been signed by CVC yet, but their lawyers have been basically interfacing with our lawyers, so the document has been agreed. There is one small commercial point that we will need Donald to resolve as and when he arrives, but nothing of real significance."
Q: Is the commercial deal done?
Dennis: "This is a document that embraces the principles that relate to all issues, so it is an MOU that embraces the whole of the situation. But of course the FIA is extremely important into the formation of the Technical and Sporting Regulations, and at the end it is the starting point.
"Now, I would assume - and it is my assumption - that there will be parallel processes that will ultimately lead to a consolidated Concorde Agreement that will have as an integral part the Sporting and Commercial agreement. This is an open issue. They may stand separate, but they may be part of a unified document."
Q: Is this the deal you were always hoping for?
Dennis: "In anything there is always give-and-take, and you always look back on something and say, well... The process of not moving forward was starting to hurt our entire business.
"Sponsors want to feel confident, we need to develop F1, we need to stabilise a whole range of issues that have moved out of the spotlight and moved out from under the microscope. We have been focusing on the bigger picture issues and now we have got to start and go back and systematically address all the issues that need to be address for 2008.
"From a timing perspective it is 2008, a lot of the decisions that need to be taken sooner than that, but there is no decision that needs to be taken before February next year. Even if you had to make new engines - I am not suggesting for one minute we do - you could still accommodate it.
"In order to get to where we want to get to, now is the time the detailed work starts and hopefully everyone will realise it is a spirit of compromise and more importantly an environment where the democratic process is important. That is what we need.
"Once you have got the rigid framework that the Concorde Agreement can give you, which means stability, then I think everybody starts to spend a lot of money focusing on that stable situation, and that is when change really starts to cost money.
"So my own opinion is that we should be democratic to the point of stability, and then locked down where individual teams cannot be penalised for innovation and things like that. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge before we get to that point."
Q: Is this different to the the Williams deal (of agreeing to extend the Concorde Agreement)?
Dennis: "Honestly, inevitably all the teams are taken into consideration. There is no question, and it is great for them, that the situation we have arrived at is executed by CVC and is significantly different and more clearly defined in the breadth of the document, and what it addresses is far more broader than any of the existing documents. That is no more than anyone wanted.
"Clarity gives you the fundamental tools to move forward. Ambiguity is difficult to reflect in clear documents, there is a degree you can go from half a dozen heads and have a simple heads of agreement but it doesn't allow you to flesh out and guide and govern this complex sport."
Q: Were Renault urging you to move on?
Dennis: "Not really. Everyone has different agendas, and they clearly needed and wanted to understand the stability of F1, and that was taken into consideration. But we are all on parallel paths with a common desire to achieve a common objective, and that is what we did."
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