Formula one is worth about $8 or $9 billion, as the sport’s owner CVC confirmed it has this week sold a 21 per cent stake to new investors.

News of the sale coincided with the launch of pre-marketing ahead of one of the biggest ever sports floatations, data by the financial experts Thomson Reuters shows.

“It’s cheap compared to Facebook,” chief executive Bernie Ecclestone told reporters on Tuesday, confirming that the Singapore IPO looks set to go ahead soon “with no dramas”.

“All the things that have to happen have happened. It will be finished by the end of June,” the 81-year-old is quoted by the Telegraph.

F1′s new one-fifth owners are US managers Waddell and Reed, the powerful Blackrock and Norway’s central bank Norges.

“It’s a great way to start the IPO and lets investors know what they can expect,” said Ecclestone.

The diminutive Briton said he is keeping his 5.3 per cent stake, and staying in charge. His former wife Slavica controls another 8.5pc, the news agency Bloomberg said.

“You might as well have asked Frank Sinatra who he would appoint to replace him,” Ecclestone insisted.

CVC said in a statement that is remains F1′s biggest and controlling shareholder.

Last Sunday proved that Pastor Maldonado is no mere ‘pay driver’.

“If he was a fool, he would not be with us, no matter how much money he brings,” Sir Frank Williams is quoted by Brazil’s Globo Esporte.

Venezuelan Maldonado, whose links to the state owned oil company PDVSA and president Hugo Chavez controversially deliver many millions to Williams’ Oxfordshire based team, became F1′s fifth different winner of 2012 last weekend in Spain.

It has helped him to shake off the ‘pay driver’ insult, Williams insisting he is now a potential world champion instead.

“Without a doubt. He is very fast and makes no mistakes,” the newly 70-year-old Briton said.

Williams does, however, acknowledge that Maldonado’s money was a key factor in the decision to sign him.

“Yes, it was to some extent,” he said. “I don’t deny that. But he’s also a real driver. He fully deserves to be on the team, with or without money.

“The truth is that if you don’t have money, you don’t get to be in formula one,” added Williams.

Team shareholder Toto Wolff agrees: “If you want to race in GP2, you need a few million pounds. So, the drivers need not only to be fast and talented, but able to attract the sponsors.

“So let’s forget this thing about ‘pay drivers’,” he insisted.

Triple world champion Nelson Piquet, however, has some lingering doubts.

He ran Maldonado in his own GP2 team some years ago, and this week recalled a driver who was often “too aggressive” and made too many mistakes.

“We’re not talking about a guy who shone in his youth, like Nico Rosberg,” said the famous Brazilian, “or someone like Lewis Hamilton, who always had everything he needed thanks to Ron Dennis.

“In GP2, when you don’t stand out in your second year, you begin to be doubted. In Maldonado’s case, he only shone in his fourth year.

“Perhaps because of this he only made it to formula one as a paying driver, without having anything special, apparently. He was perceived as just a good pilot, but clearly no Alonso.

“Now he was at the right place at the right time but he still managed to beat Alonso in Spain as well as another world champion, Kimi (Raikkonen). So hats off to him.”

A Daimler shareholder has called on the German car giant to pull its works Mercedes team out of formula one.

Fund manager Ingo Speich, of the Daimler shareholder Union Investment, said at Daimler’s annual general meeting that he is disappointed Mercedes has lost ground to road car rivals Audi and BMW.

“Mercedes is no longer the measure of all things in the premium sector,” he is quoted as saying by Die Presse.

Speich referred to “a lost decade” for Daimler, and called on the company to follow BMW’s recent lead and pull out of formula one.

His speech reportedly received applause from other shareholders.

Mercedes is the biggest formula one team yet to follow the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull in signing a new Concorde Agreement beyond 2012.

 Force India has been ordered by a British court to pay over a million dollars.
With team boss Vijay Mallya already in financial strife over his collapsing airline Kingfisher, his Silverstone based team must now pay Italian wind tunnel Aerolab.

The high court judge on Wednesday said the amount, which according to the Daily Telegraph will skyrocket to over $6 million once legal costs are added, is for unpaid fees following a copyright dispute with Aerolab and Caterham.

The newspaper said the bill could be the final straw for struggling Mallya, who may now cede control of Force India to 42.5 per cent shareholder Subrata Roy, another Indian billionaire.

But Force India hit back in a media statement on Wednesday by revealing that Aerolab and its client Caterham were found “liable for copyright infringement”.

“Some parts created using Force India confidential information were used on the Team Lotus race cars in the early part of the 2010 season,” it read.

Force India said it has referred the court’s ruling to the FIA.

 Many team bosses reportedly left the Melbourne paddock angry late on Sunday, amid claims Ferrari and Red Bull have agreed special deals for F1′s future beyond the current Concorde Agreement.
Rumours of the top teams’ deal – part of a reportedly planned $10 billion stock market floatation of the sport – began to swirl following the publication and then retraction of a Sky News internet report.

The report was reportedly based on a leaked copy of the draft 2013 Concorde Agreement, which according to London’s Telegraph newspaper “could hand Ferrari a direct stake in the sport”.

Red Bull, the reigning champions, “also stand to make a huge sum”, the report claimed, adding that the energy drink-owned team as well as Ferrari will be asked to nominate directors for F1′s holding company board.

Team boss Christian Horner revealed Red Bull is “in discussions with FOM” about a new Concorde Agreement, adding that talks are “progressing reasonably well”.

How the other major teams – like FOTA members McLaren and Mercedes – fit into the picture is unclear at present, but the Times newspaper reports that there are “no seats” at the boardroom table allocated for them.

An unnamed senior team executive described the rumoured special deals for Ferrari and Red Bull as “outrageous” and “against every facet of European competition law”.

Ferrari declined to comment.

Horner added: “We want one (a Concorde Agreement) which reaches into the future … a floatation is really down to the shareholders.

“It is not really the teams’ business,” he added. “It is more of a question for Bernie (Ecclestone) or CVC.”

Many paddock insiders, however, believe the deals are already done in principle, leading one angry rival team boss to blast: “Formula one stopped being about racing a long time ago”.

“There will be an end game to this,” he added. “We just have to figure out what it is and what it means for the people in the teams who want to go racing and not be involved in this kind of thing.”

F1 could be set to get some new shareholders, amid reports the collapsed US bank Lehman Brothers wants to sell its stake within two years.
The bank, which is being wound up to pay back creditors, still holds a 15 per cent stake in the majority CVC-owned holding company Delta Topco, which the Guardian newspaper said is valued at about $1.5 billion.

Lehman Brothers became a F1 shareholder in 2002, when the German media company Kirch defaulted on a loan.

Sir Frank Williams has stepped down from the board of his own formula one team.
Earlier this week, the Grove based team’s 69-year-old founder, major shareholder and team principal named chairman Adam Parr as his future successor.

“If for whatever reason I couldn’t come in to do my job, Adam would fill the gap,” he told the British magazine F1 Racing.

On Friday, a team statement read: “Sir Frank Williams, founder and team principal, announced his decision to step down from the board.”

He explained: “I turn 70 in April and I have decided to signal the next stage in the gradual but inevitable process of handing over the reins to the next generation.

“This is not as dramatic a move as it may appear: I shall continue to work full-time as team principal and I shall continue to attend all board meetings as observer,” added Williams.

He will also have a Williams family member on the board, as his daughter Claire steps up to be director of marketing and communications.

Frank Williams said: “I am proud to say that she has fought hard to earn this appointment and of all the battles she has had to fight, the prejudices of her father were not the least challenging.”

Late last year, the team’s co-founder Patrick Head also stepped down.

 Sir Frank Williams has named Adam Parr, the Oxfordshire based team’s current chairman, as his obvious successor.
69-year-old founder Williams remains the major shareholder and team principal, but he has already handed over the day-to-day running of the once-great outfit to fellow Briton Parr, 46.

“If for whatever reason I couldn’t come in to do my job, Adam would fill the gap,” Williams told the British magazine F1 Racing.

“He’s not a racer but, in a way, that’s probably an advantage in these distinctly commercial days,” he added.

Parr began his career with the investment bank Barclays de Zoete Wedd, and later worked for Rio Tinto.

He practiced law until the late 90s, meeting Williams in 2000.

German bank and former F1 shareholder BayernLB contemplated dismissing Bernie Ecclestone six years ago, it emerged during Gerhard Gribkowsky’s corruption trial this week.
The trial, with Briton Ecclestone set to appear as a witness next month, surrounds the F1 chief executive’s suspect payment of millions to Gribkowsky, who was then in charge of BayernLB’s F1 share.

An employee testified on Wednesday that Ecclestone heard during bank meetings several times in 2005 that F1 “could do without him”, the Reuters news agency reports.

Ecclestone, turning 81 on Friday, told the German newspaper Die Welt this week that formula one would survive without him.

“It would,” he said, “but things would be very different if I’m not there.

“I have a very great and strong support from many people, with a lot of mutual trust.

“If the leadership was to change, nothing would be affected seriously but it would be more complicated and difficult because that trust might not be there any more.

“People would probably want to read the contracts ten times more than if I was there,” added Ecclestone.

Patrick Head has admitted he will begin to take more of a back seat at Williams from 2012.
Earlier this year, the famous team’s 66-year-old co-founder released most of his shareholding for the Frankfurt floatation, before chairman Adam Parr announced to the press that Head “will be retiring at some point this year”.

Head reacted angrily to Parr’s statement but at Silverstone admitted that his director of engineering role at the Oxfordshire based team is changing.

“All I know is I’m not retiring,” he is quoted by the Independent newspaper.

“I probably won’t be involved with Williams formula one in the same way from the end of the year but I’ll still be involved in some Williams activities,” added Head.

The newspaper said a change of title is likely for Head, but not a stepping back as a shareholder or board member.

Head added that he will “certainly turn up at a few races” in the future but will not have a hands-on engineering role at the grands prix.

One of F1′s non-executive directors is looking to get involved with formula one sponsorship deals.
The Financial Times reports that global communications services company WPP, headed by founder and boss Sir Martin Sorrell, is taking a minority stake in the biggest F1 sponsorship agency Just Marketing.

Sorrell is a board member of CVC, the controlling shareholder of formula one.

He said motor sport and F1 have grown significantly “But it needs a more professional approach from the marketing side”.

Zak Brown-headed Just Marketing handles the F1 sponsorships of clients including LG, Johnnie Walker and UBS.

“Motor sport is a very interesting area. It is very global, it has good reach, and with its live events has tremendous cross-media and new media opportunities,” added Sorrell.

Brown confirmed that the deal is going ahead and will “result in bringing in more clients and more money in the sport”.

But he remains concerned that F1′s constant politics is a barrier to the involvement of some potential sponsors.

“I do think it crosses the line from time to time, and I’m sure there are some companies that won’t participate in F1 because they can’t stomach the politics,” said Brown.

Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that McLaren’s current situation has raised questions about his future at the helm of the British team.

McLaren was the most notably affected by the exhaust blowing clampdown at Silverstone, where on Sunday Jenson Button retired with a loose wheel before Lewis Hamilton had to slow down because his sister car was running out of fuel.

They were the latest in a series of mistakes for one of the most successful and best funded teams, whilst former boss and perfectionist Ron Dennis has been lifting his profile at several grands prix recently.

“I am confident that I will stay in my job,” Whitmarsh said late on Sunday.

“I answer to the board, not just Ron, and they seem happy with the job I’m doing — for now, anyway.”

He admitted however that his relationship with Dennis, McLaren’s executive chairman and shareholder who stepped down as team boss in the wake of the hugely damaging spygate saga, is “interesting”.

“We have ups and downs but I think our relationship is strong at the moment. I am firm about where I draw the line in terms of what my responsibilities are and what his are with regard to the F1 team,” he said.

Williams shareholder Christian ‘Toto’ Wolff has played down reports Colin Kolles’ next destination might be the famous British team. It has emerged that, with HRT now making plans for the future by strengthening its technical and management team, the Spanish team’s Romanian-born German boss is set to step down. Some specialist reports have suggested former Force India chief Kolles, whose Greding headquarters is effectively HRT’s technical base at present, could move on to Williams. “Colin is a friend of mine,” Austrian Wolff, who is the largest Williams shareholder after Sir Frank Williams, is quoted as admitting to German website motorsport-total.com. It is believed Kolles has in the past been engaged privately by Wolff in various business capacities. “If I was ever involved in a company that needed a great fireman to rescue it from collapse, Colin would be my man,” he said. “But we are absolutely not in that situation at Williams.”

Ross Brawn, and an official spokesman for the German marque, have refused to confirm reports that Mercedes is taking over 100 per cent of the Brackley based F1 team.

It was reported on Wednesday that team boss Brawn and his partners had agreed to sell the remaining 24.9 per cent of Mercedes GP to the carmaker and its Abu Dhabi shareholder AABAR.

A Mercedes spokesman did not deny the news but insisted that “We will only inform at a given time when there are facts”.

And Brawn, who will reportedly remain team boss while the cars will continue to be built in the UK, told F1′s official website that the reports were “just speculation”.

“That’s not something I am going to comment on,” he added.

Mercedes is set to take complete control of the Brackley based F1 team that bears its name.

The German carmaker took over the team last year but Ross Brawn and his partners retained 24.9 per cent of the shares, the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport said.

The report said a deal to make Mercedes and Daimler shareholder AABAR the 100 per cent owner will be in place by March’s Bahrain season opener.

The Brackley based team began life in the late 90s as British American Racing (BAR), later becoming Honda who pulled out of F1 at the end of the 2008 season.

Auto Motor und Sport said Mercedes intends to keep team boss Brawn on board as an employee.