Ferrari’s new deal for the 2013 Concorde Agreement reportedly involves a $50 million annual fee.

It is believed the Italian team has now finalised its commercial agreement with Bernie Ecclestone.

The same is reportedly true for fellow top teams McLaren and Red Bull, whose annual additional fee is, according to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, $35m apiece.

Ecclestone wanted to announce the conclusion of successful Concorde Agreement negotiations in Malaysia, but major teams including Mercedes and Williams were yet to sign up.

Instead, the F1 chief executive released a statement saying deals have been done with ‘the majority’ of the teams.

Mercedes, in particular, is more than unhappy.

“It can not be,” a Daimler insider is quoted as saying, “that transparency from our business partners is lacking regarding a contract through 2020.”

 An Australian federal politician has argued Melbourne’s grand prix should be axed because it bankrolls “Bernie’s billionaire bogan”.
Kelvin Thomson told parliament that much of the fee paid by the Victorian state government to formula one ends up in the deep pockets of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone’s eldest daughter Tamara.

After watching a documentary about 27-year-old Ms Ecclestone, he said she uses a million-dollar bathtub, an elevator for her Ferrari road car, crystal balls for her bowling alley, and a massage parlour for her dogs.

“One thing I am absolutely sure of,” said Thomson, “there are better ways to spend $50 million, year in and year out, than bankrolling Bernie’s billionaire bogan.”

‘Bogan’ is an Australian slang term for someone who demonstrates their lower-class background through their speech, clothing and behaviour.

This weekend’s Australian grand prix is seventeenth at Albert Park.

Bernie Ecclestone has expressed frustration with the attitude of Australia’s formula one race organisers.
The F1 chief executive is pushing for the Melbourne race, with a contract through 2015, to be held at night for a more favourable live timeslot back in Europe.

He may even be offering a fee subsidy, but formula one remains controversial within the Victorian state parliament, with taxpayers footing $50 million bills annually.

Ecclestone has reacted by offering to sit down and negotiate an early end to the Albert Park deal.

“If the government wanted to, we could certainly come to some terms, I suppose,” he told the Sunday Herald Sun from London.

81-year-old Ecclestone reportedly wants the government, led by premier Ted Baillieu, to come clean about his plans for the future.

“It would just be nice for somebody to say to me ‘Bernie, definitely, 100 per cent, we don’t want to renew our contract’,” he said.

So Ecclestone reportedly warned that Baillieu should begin talks now if he wants to keep the sport in Melbourne.

The premier’s spokesman reportedly said the government will not ‘take an open chequebook’ to the negotiations.

Red Bull’s championship spoils are worth tens of millions of euros, according to a report.
Germany’s Sport1 claims the 2011 constructors’ champions will earn EUR 60 million for the feat, even though the detail of the sport’s income distribution system is protected by the confidential Concorde Agreement.

But “The difference between first and second places is around ten million euros,” the team’s consultant Dr Helmut Marko is quoted as revealing.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais claims the world championship is worth as much as EUR 72 million to Red Bull in official F1 income.

The report said second place gets EUR 50 million, and third 36m, with the amounts then dropping proportionately by several million dollars for the lower placings down to tenth.

“For the small teams, a higher place in the constructors’ championship is very important because it means a lot of money,” said Spanish engineer Toni Cuquerella.

As for Red Bull’s millions, a lot of that money is already assigned to the development of next year’s single seater, demonstrated by designer Adrian Newey’s absence in Korea.

“He’s in the UK and focused on the RB8,” revealed team boss Christian Horner last weekend.

Bernie Ecclestone has been called to give evidence in the corruption scandal of former F1 banker Gerhard Gribkowsky.

Bloomberg and the German news magazine Focus said the F1 chief executive, under investigation for paying millions to Gribkowsky relating to the sale of the sport some years ago, will testify in the second week of the trial in November.

“I have been to Munich and was questioned so I suppose they want to ask (in court) me the questions that I answered then,” the Independent newspaper quotes the F1 chief executive as confirming.

The German business newspaper Handelsblatt, meanwhile, reports that Gribkowsky may have received from Ecclestone $70 or $80 million, not the widely reported $44 to $50 million.

The report cited a document from the Munich prosecutors. Neither Ecclestone’s nor Gribkowsky’s lawyers wanted to comment.

German prosecutors are likely to seek an interview with Bernie Ecclestone as they investigate F1′s 2006 takeover.

It is the latest development following the jailing in Munich of banker Gerhard Gribkowsky surrounding his mysterious receipt of $50 million, with German media suspecting it may have been paid by F1 chief executive Ecclestone.

British sources including Sky, the Telegraph and the Times report that Ecclestone, 80, is expected to be questioned.

The Briton, who has denied making the payment but is understood to have retained a team of German lawyers, was not available for comment.

It is also not known when the questioning will take place or whether it will be in the UK or Germany, but if it is the latter, Ecclestone is likely to seek assurances that he will not also be detained.

The Telegraph said Ecclestone has not yet been contacted but will be “happy to assist with the investigation”.

F1′s owner CVC, who have also denied involvement in the Gribkowsky payment, recently commissioned a separate investigation into the takeover which reportedly cleared it of wrongdoing.

CVC declined to comment.

Bernie Ecclestone is the subject of ever-worsening claims about the sale of F1′s commercial rights five years ago.

It has already been alleged that it was the sport’s chief executive and long-time ‘supremo’ who paid German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky a mysterious $50 million kickback.

And the latest explosive details have been published by the German weekly Der Spiegel.

The report said F1′s current owner CVC Capital Partners paid $837 million for the share of the rights that at the time was controlled by the Munich bank BayernLB.

But BayernLB reportedly only received $770 million.

Der Spiegel alleges that $40 million was received directly by Ecclestone, with the other $27m flowing to his family trust Bambino.

A German newspaper has published more details about its claim that Bernie Ecclestone paid a $50 million bribe amid the sale of F1′s commercial rights five years ago.

Earlier in January, the sport’s chief executive vowed to “fight it in the courts” if publications continued to allege he paid German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky a $50 million kickback when the rights were sold by BayernLB to F1′s current owners CVC.

The newsmagazine Stern subsequently alleged that the payments to Gribkowsky were linked with a company called Petara — a word made up from the names of Ecclestone’s daughters Petra and Tamara.

Now, the Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper claims it has found “concrete evidence” about the Ecclestone link.

The evidence is reportedly a letter to 80-year-old Briton Ecclestone from an Austrian company called GREP GmbH, which received the bulk of the Gribkowsky payment.

The letter, marked as confidential and dated December 14 2007, demands that Ecclestone pay a missing instalment of $2.3 million as well as late penalties.

The writer was a lawyer working for Gribkowsky, and SZ cited sources in revealing that Ecclestone was “outraged” when he received the letter in London.

The latest media report said Formula One Management has renewed its denial that the company or its boss Ecclestone were involved with or had any knowledge about the payments to Gribkowsky.

A Spanish arbitration court has ruled that HRT team owner Jose Ramon Carabante owes almost 50 million euros to a business partner.

Mid last year, the payment dispute with Trinitario Casanova, from whom Carabante bought the Grupo Hispania in 2008, emerged, with each claiming the other owes them multiple millions.

The Madrid commercial court La Corte y Mercantil de Arbitraje ruled a few days ago that Carabante pay EUR 47.5 million to Casanova within 20 days, according to the La Verdad newspaper.

But according to another report in the Spanish newspaper Expansion, “Trinitario and I came to an agreement before” the ruling, Carabante is quoted as saying.

In the same report, Carabante defended HRT’s lacklustre debut season in 2010.

“We finished more races than many other teams, and Virgin, for instance – with a much higher budget – fell behind us,” he insisted.

“At first it was said we would not be at the first race, then it was said we would last two races, then three, and finally we finished the season with dignity,” added Carabante.

He also said HRT is close to reaching an agreement with an investor.

“We are in advanced negotiations for the entry of an international investor,” he announced. “It would be for a minority of capital because I don’t want to sell completely.”

The Colin Kolles-led team said on Friday that it has “expanded (its) resources” for 2011 and is confident of “becoming more competitive”.

The banker accused of taking a $50 million bribe amid the sale of F1′s commercial rights five years ago has been arrested.
It emerged earlier this week that as the rights were passing from the controlling Bayerische Landesbank to CVC Capital Partners, the Munich bank’s F1 representative Gerhard Gribkowsky may have received the sum as an under the table ‘thankyou’.

The speculation emerged due to his formation of a charity foundation in Austria, with reports saying Gribkowsky had “no plausible explanation” about the source of the millions.

Munich prosecutors confirmed late on Wednesday that Gribkowsky was arrested and taken into custody on charges of corruption, tax fraud and breach of trust by selling the F1 rights “without evaluation of its current value” and taking the kickback.

The prosecutors did not say who paid the 52-year-old, and a spokesman for F1′s current rights owners CVC initially declined to comment.

But a spokeswoman for the prosecutors said Gribkowsky received the money “in payments disguised via two consultancy agreements”.

CVC then said in a statement that it has “no knowledge of, nor any involvement in, any payment to Mr Gribkowsky or anyone connected with him in relation to CVC’s acquisition of formula one”.

2014 could be the last time Melbourne hosts the Australian grand prix, state Victorian premier John Brumby has admitted.

The race’s annual taxpayer-funded losses have grown to almost $50 million, moving the ruling Labor Party to consider not renewing the current contract.

“I know there’s a range of views in the community and it is a costly major event, but we’ve got it until 2014, and really we’ll look at whether we go beyond that,” Brumby told the national radio broadcaster ABC.

He added that the debut race in 1996 was amid a broader major events programme for the state.

“Certainly when we first won that (event) in Victoria it had a newness and a freshness and the longer you go with these things that freshness can obviously diminish a little,” said Brumby.

The other side of state politics is also questioning the value of the grand prix, with opposition leader Ted Baillieu saying the cost is “a real worry”.

Even after hosting its inaugural grand prix less than two weeks ago, a cloud is above the future of Korea’s formula one race.

The Yeongam circuit has failed a state safety inspection and cancelled a F3 race scheduled for November, amid new reports of apparent corruption within the organising company and F1 promoter KAVO.

The Korea Herald said the South Jeolla provincial government is set to investigate, with some money from the circuit’s construction budget spent without documentation.

“Over the next week, we’re going to look through all the documents of KAVO,” said Jung Hwan-dae, the vice-chairman of the provincial assembly.

“We’re also planning to summon officials from KAVO to investigate how the money was spent. There is something wrong here,” he added.

The undocumented expenditure amounts to more than $50 million, with other media reports alleging construction firms were paid off to avoid fees.

A KAVO spokesman would not say how the missing money was spent, but commented: “No illegal conduct took place.”

The economy is booming, but Max Mosley finds out that it was absolutely right by him to pursue having the formula 1, a drastic austerity plan.

As the global economy from the worst crisis in recent decades recovering and also in racing again as the money comes a little looser than a few months ago, Max Mosley reiterates that should be saved in Formula 1 also. He believes that the austerity measures demanded by him were completely right – and still are.

“At the moment,” said the former FIA president in an interview with BBC Radio 5 live ‘, “a team gets about 40 or 50 million dollars from Bernie (Ecclestone, editor’s note), you probably need 200. to operate properly can. Even in the current situation, in which the whole world probably slowly recovering from the recession, it is very difficult to get as much money from sponsors. ”
The teams, however, have relaxed the restrictions their recent 2017 extended Savings Agreement (RRA) – According to Mosley, a wrong decision, “I believe that it is easy for the team in any way, and the thing would be to reduce costs further,” he believes. “. But the bottom line is the decision of the team, you all sit together and know what they should do in my opinion you see it differently -. And that is their business.”

“But there is no doubt that some of them are on the brink, because they spend so much money and the ways to find money, are limited,” adds the 70-year-old Briton. In the industry is said to mainly HRT, Virgin and Force India a tense financial situation. Sauber also can only since the agreement with the future major sponsor Telmex breathe.
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Santander is more than happy with its sponsorship activities in formula one, according to Spanish media reports.

Citing the confirmation of communications boss Juan Manuel Cendoya, the EFE and Europa Press (EP) news agencies said the Spanish bank’s EUR 50 million spend this year will net a five-fold return.

That means that the returns gained in 2010 will pay for Santander’s projected spending between 2011 and 2014, involving trackside and race sponsorship and the major backing of the Ferrari team.

The EP report said Santander reduced its advertising in other areas after investing in F1, including a 10 per cent decrease in 2009.

The state Victorian government has defended its record spending on the Australian grand prix.

It emerged on Thursday that now with an almost $50 million loss annually, the Melbourne race in 2010 cost taxpayers more than double the bill of just four years ago.

An independent MP called the figures “embarrassing” and “outrageous”, but major events minister Tim Holding said formula one is worth it.

“The economic benefit to Victoria far outweighs the cost of staging the grand prix,” he is quoted by The Age newspaper.

Albert Park is contracted to stay on the F1 calendar until at least 2015.