Sidepodcast

• Length: 3:17 
• Size: 3.1 MB 
• File: day7.mp3 
• Transcript: day7.pdf 
• Torrent: day7.torrent 

Welcome to Sidepodcast’s series Days that Shook the F1 World. So far we’ve looked at the US Grand Prix in 2005, Ayrton Senna’s death in 1994 and more. Today we’re looking at a pivotal moment in Formula 1 history, and the date was 9th October 1991.

It’s fair to say that Max Mosley is not the most popular person in F1 at the moment, and his tenure at the top of the FIA may soon be drawing to a close. However, when he first got the job back in 1991, he was definitely the preferred option.

It was the events of the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix and the subsequent fallout that first promoted Max to stand against the then president of the FISA Jean-Marie Balestre. The FISA was the sporting part of the FIA, and they were suffering from a case of bad reputations. Already we have discussed the lacklustre attempt at banning ground effects, which ultimately led to more accidents and deaths.

In Japan, an accident between Senna and Prost caused the Brazillian to be excluded from the race, handing the ’89 World Championship to Prost. Further to that, an appeal by McLaren served to see Ayrton’s super-license suspended and he was given a fine for $100,000. Predictably Senna spoke out about the decision and his comments claimed championship manipulation by the FISA. This angered Balestre, so much so that Senna was called before the World Motorsport Council to explain himself. The courts decided to take away Senna’s superlicence altogether, and he wasn’t going to be allowed it back unless he apologised for his comments.

The following February, Senna was finally persuaded to make the apology and his licence was returned. Max Mosley started to solicit support to become the FIA President. Although this obviously had something to do with the incident with Senna, it may also have had origins in the history between Mosley and Balestre. A vicious war had been raging between the FISA and the FOCA.

The FOCA was headed up by Bernie Ecclestone with Max Mosley as his right hand man. They were working on the team’s behalf to increase revenue share and make sure that everyone had their say. The FISA was fighting against them.

Eventually, the war drew to a somewhat amicable resolution, with Balestre taking over as President of the FIA and continuing to make the rules for Formula 1, whilst Ecclestone took over the commercial rights for the sport and divied up the cash.

In 1991, Balestre’s FIA presidency was up for renewal, and Max Mosley stood against him. Mosley easily gained the presidency. For a while, teams were satisfied. Max was working with them instead of against them, rule changes began to happen and everything was hunky dory. Teams and drivers felt so comfortable that Senna was able to speak out against the former President without fear of losing his licence. He denied making any apologies about the manipulation claims.

Of course, the happiness couldn’t last, and you’ll find politics rearing up almost every day now. But it’s safe to say that at the time, Mosley was the best thing that could have happened to the sport.

That’s all for this episode of Days that Shook the F1 World, and all for this series. Please visit Sidepodcast.com to leave your comments about this and any of the other shows in the series. Thanks for listening.

Theme music: Dylan in the Movies, Better Days and Causeway, Change in My Lifetime.

• Length: 4:03 
• Size: 3.8 MB 
• File: day4.mp3 
• Transcript: day4.pdf 
• Torrent: day4.torrent 

Hello everyone, welcome to Days that Shook the F1 World, a series from Sidepodcast that takes a look at some of those important days that left the sport reeling, never to be the same again. Today we’re looking at the 3rd November 1983.

Whilst advocating safety at every opportunity, the majority of people involved in Formula 1 also want more speed. That’s the aim of the game, after all - to maximise speed and beat your rivals because they haven’t found that edge within the regulations like you have.

Ground effects was one of those things.

The basic theory behind the ground effect is to create as much downforce as possible, enabling a car to go faster around corners. By making the sides of the car as low as possible, the air pressure underneath the chassis is lower than that above, which basically glues the car to the track.

Lotus were the first team to introduce the concept to the Formula 1 back in the 1970s. They were helped along by the use of a wind tunnel, which resulted in longer sidepods and consistent ride height, creating a reasonable inverse wing effect.

This effect didn’t necessarily help on the long straights, but when it came to cornering, it left the old style cars in its wake. When Lotus introduced their car in 1978, it won 8 out of 16 races, proving that the new developments would revolutionise the sport.

Other teams began to sit up and take notice and it wasn’t long before the ground effects principal was becoming ubiquitous. By 1982, there were no cars without the technology. Fast races, fantastic cornering speeds, all great stuff.

Except, the cars were inherently unstable.

The forces created by the ground effects were all well and good, if the car managed to stay stuck to the circuit, but once the effect was broken, it had potentially devastating consequences. A wing would then act as a wing should, rising up and literally flying the car off the track.

It wasn’t long before serious accidents started to happen. Drivers were often struggling to keep their cars on track during high speed cornering, and incident after incident culminated in the death of Alfa Romeo driver Patrick Depailler in Germany. Although a lack of safety fencing was deemed the reason for his death, there was no denying that the speed carried through the bend had something to do with it as well.

During this time, the two rival governing bodies the FISA and FOCA were at war, and ground effects was one of the big catalysts for their arguments. After Depailler’s death, the FISA finally forced through a new rule, stating that, whilst in the pits, cars had to have at least 6cm of clearance between their skirt and the ground. Teams very, very quickly got around this, by running their cars close to the ground out on track, and simply raising them up on hydraulics when it came to measurements in the pits. Given the ingenuity of the teams, or the uselessness of the rule, the FISA soon revoked their ruling, and allowed skirts to return to the cars.

Big mistake.

Accidents continued to occur, and although they were excused by other circumstances, they could almost always be traced back to the lower sides on the cars. Then came the tragic death of Gilles Villeneuve, and an accident later in Germany that saw Didier Pironi break both his legs in multiple places. The cause of those accidents could not be brushed aside and it was obvious something had to be done.

In November 1982, ground effects were officially banned with a more explicit rule, stating that from 1983 flat bottoms were required for F1 cars from the trailing edge of the front wheels, to the leading edge of the rear wheels.

Since then, the sport has never looked back. There’s no denying the fact that it was a brilliant piece of engineering, to get the idea off the page, out of the wind tunnel and onto the cars. But the dangers and speeds involved were just too great, and there is no question that banning the principal was the right thing to do.

That’s all for this episode of Days that Shook the F1 World. Please visit Sidepodcast.com to leave your comments and feedback about this and the other shows in this series.

Theme music: Dylan in the Movies, Better Days and Causeway, Change in My Lifetime.

• File: People2.mp3
• Length: 03:20
• Size: 3.1 MB
• Transcript: People2.pdf

Welcome to F1 People. This is the second in a Sidepodcast series giving you an insight into the names that have shaped Formula 1. Yesterday we took a closer look at Mr Ecclestone, and today we will be introducing his partner in crime, Max Mosley.

Max Mosley was born in 1940 to Sir Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford. Oswald Mosley was a former leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Adolf Hitler was a guest at his wedding to Diana Mitford.

Mosley spent the majority of his childhood in Ireland and was sent to school in France, then Germany and then Oxford. By 1961, he had graduated from a college in Oxford with a degree in physics. He qualified as a solicitor after studying in London.

Visiting Silverstone in the early 60s convinced Mosley to join in the fun, and he raced in a few club events, before moving on to Formula 2, where he founded his own London Racing Team. He retired from racing in 1969, but stuck around in motorsport to become one of the founders of the March team. During the 60s, Mosley was an election agent for his father’s Union Movement Party. He ran as a candidate for a constituency in London but withdrew before the 1964 elections.

March was modestly successful within Formula 1, with three wins under their belt, most notably Jackie Stewart in 1970. The company was more successful as a production company for the Formula 2 series, and March cars won many championships below the top Formula.

Max Mosley joined Bernie Ecclestone within the Formula One Constructors Association, as legal advisor, and became very involved in the battle between the FOCA and the FISA. He was instrumental in the creation of the Concorde Agreement. After the agreement was signed and sorted, Mosley decided to take three years out of the sport but he returned as President of the Manufacturer’s Commission for the FIA in 1986. In 1991, he was elected President of the FISA – the motorsport subsidiary of the FIA – taking over from Jean-Marie Balestre. Mosley decided to resign after a year, but was re-elected for a four year term. He continued to be re-elected, and reigns to this day.

Most recently, Max Mosley has begin to lose favour within the sport, for many reasons. The relationship between Bernie Ecclestone, who gave him a break within the sport, seems to be falling apart slowly. The pair’s views and actions appear to be drifting gradually apart.

Max is not shy about making enemies. His previous success with Jackie Stewart in the March team is easily forgotten, and this year the pair have had a slanging match which includes lawyers. Stewart has called for Mosley’s resignation but he is not prepared to step down for anything he has said. Some think he has begun to say things that are completely unnecessary, and some of the things he says and opinions he shares are not really becoming to the President of the governing body.

Mosley’s current term expires in 2009, and he has announced that he will consider the options next year, but it is widely speculated that he will withdraw from the position. He has mentioned the absurdity of governing drivers who are young enough to be his grandchildren. But, at age 67, he is still going strong.

Thank you for listening to F1 People. Tomorrow we’ll have a look at our third important name in Formula 1.

Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.

• File: People1.mp3
• Length: 04:06
• Size: 3.8 MB
• Transcript: People1.pdf

Welcome to F1 People, a Sidepodcast series giving you an insight into the names that have shaped Formula 1. This is by no means a definitive list. In this first series, we’ll feature seven significant figures, starting with Bernard Charles Ecclestone.

Bernie Ecclestone was born on October 28^th 1930, in a small village in Suffolk, and brought up in Bexleyheath, Kent. He left school at 16 to work in the local gasworks as an assistant, so he could pursue his passion of motorcycles. After the end of World War II, Ecclestone began to trade motorcycle parts, and formed a dealership with Fred Compton.

He had a go at racing, taking part in the Formula 3 500cc series, but a couple of accidents made him rethink his plans, and he returned to the business world. He bought out Compton, and turned the motorcycle business into a growing emporium, including auctions, loans and property deals.

In 1957, Ecclestone became the manager of Stuart Lewis-Evans, a racing driver from Wales. Ecclestone bought the F1 team Connaught to give Lewis-Evans a drive, along with a couple of other promising drivers. He even had a go himself at the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix but did not get past qualifying. Bernie left the sport again, but returned in 1968 and 69 to manage Jochen Rindt in the Lotus. In 1972, he bought the Brabham team and put all his efforts into making it a winning constructor. The team cost him £100,000.

He gradually made Brabham more and more competitive through the 1970s and well into the 1980s, but by then, other concerns were taking up his attention. Ecclestone founded the FOCA, the Formula One Constructors Association in 1974, which he became chief executive of in 1978. His right hand man and legal advisor, was Max Mosley. The FOCA’s main purpose was to negotiate better terms for the teams than the FISA (the then motorsport division of the FIA) were offering. After furious battles were fought throughout the decade, for a different entry system, TV rights, and prize money, Ecclestone eventually won and gained control with the first Concorde Agreement. TV revenue would be split three ways, 47% to the teams, 30% to the FIA and 23% to FOPA – being Formula One Promotions and Administration, another invention of Bernie’s.

When the new Concorde Agreement came into force in 1997, Ecclestone had shuffled his companies around to create Formula One Management, FOM, and had secured a deal with the FIA to gather all commercial rights to the sport, and then dish out the prizes. The teams were initially upset at this, losing out on their rights, and some refused to sign the Agreement. McLaren, Williams and Tyrell held out and eventually the deal was shortened to only ten years rather than 15.

In 1999, Bernie underwent heart surgery, but continued to do business, buying and selling shares in his companies, and he was soon fit again.

He is married to Slavica Ecclestone, and they have two daughters Tamara and Petra. Tamara Ecclestone has made inroads into a media career, working for an F1 magazine, and presenting the Red Bull Air Race for Channel 4. Despite living in a house full of women, Bernie stirred up controversy in 2005 by making disparaging comments about women in the sport, specifically Champ Cars Danica Patrick, intimating their place should be in the kitchen. This was only days before the US Grand Prix spectacle of that year, and was thus a particularly low moment for both Bernie and the sport.

Ecclestone’s interests don’t lie purely in motorsport though. In September this year, it was announced that he had teamed with Flavio Briatore to purchase football team Queens Park Rangers. We have yet to see whether they will be able to turn the teams fortunes around.

Bernie is 77 years old now, worth £2,250 million, in charge of one of the richest and most global sports today and nothing seems to be slowing him down.

That’s it, our first biography is complete. Join me tomorrow when we’ll look at our next significant individual.

Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.

• Length: 3:48 
• Size: 3.6 MB 
• File: history5.mp3 
• Transcript: history5.pdf 
• Torrent: history5.torrent 

Welcome to Sidepodcast’s History of F1. After the safety concerns of the ‘70s, the ‘80s saw many more steps forward in developmental terms.

The 1980s saw the introduction of turbocharging, which is another banned technology that took the forefront of a lot of the team’s attention. The Lotus team were concentrating on the ground-effect principle, whilst Renault re-entered F1 in with the first ever turbo. The technology was new, quick and exciting, but there were reliability problems, and the Renault did not finish an entire race distance until a year after the introduction.

1980 saw the first big disagreement between the two main F1 governing bodies, FISA and FOCA. The power struggle resulted in the Spanish Grand Prix being boycotted, and to avoid such situations in the future, the first ever Concorde Agreement was drafted up in 1981.

1980 also saw Team Williams dominating with their driver Alan Jones, whilst Ferrari were struggling with their own turbocharged car.

Despite the emergence of the turbo technology, Cosworth engines still dominated the grid, with 11 teams under their power in 1982. Turbos continued to improve, but Ferrari suffered more problems, this time with their drivers. Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve were under team orders that Villeneuve should be given preference. Pironi overtook him at the San Marino GP, and Villeneuve decreed he would never speak to his team mate again. This turned out to be tragically true, when Villeneuve was killed whilst qualifying for the Belgian GP. The accident was terrifying, with the Ferrari skidding across the track and throwing the driver from the car, into the sand.

More accidents occurred this year, with Ricardo Paletti, a little known driver in a little known team Osella, killed at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix. He was coming through from the back of the grid, unaware that Pironi, in the Ferrari, had stalled at the front. Pironi also suffered from leg injuries in practice later that year, which put an early end to his racing career.

McLaren brought out a turbo powered car, steered by Alain Prost and Niki Lauda, and in 1984, the team won 12 out of 16 races, and took a record number of points to win the title. Lauda actually pipped Prost to the driver’s title, by only half a point. Hang on, half a point? This was due to the Monaco GP that year being stopped because of a massive thunderstorm. Half points were awarded to teams and drivers.

Ayrton Senna joined McLaren in 1988 and took the championship in Japan, despite a deciding race that saw him stalling on the grid. 1989 saw Senna and Prost in-fighting after a broken agreement about not challenging each other on the track. Senna overtook Prost and the pair fell out, and later in the season, the pair collided and went off track. Prost took the championship, whilst Senna’s superlicense was revoked, causing him to comment on the manipulation that may have been happening behind the scenes.

Turbo charged engines were banned in 1989, but a couple of years earlier, another major piece of technology was beginning to take shape. 1987 saw the one year that Williams took the crown from seven McLaren titles. But it was Team Lotus that introduced the new “active suspension”, that was computer controlled. This technology was the turning point of the sport - from normal-ish cars into more technologically complex machines.

That’s all for this episode of Sidepodcast’s History of F1. Next time we’ll take a look at the 1990s, where it was all about two very different but brilliant drivers.

Theme music: Friction Bailey, Hope in my History.