{"id":15546,"date":"2012-03-20T07:23:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T11:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=15546"},"modified":"2012-03-20T07:23:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T11:23:55","slug":"fota-complaints-led-to-special-deal-report-axe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/fota-complaints-led-to-special-deal-report-axe\/","title":{"rendered":"FOTA complaints led to &#8216;special deal&#8217; report axe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rival formula one teams complained when Sky News published a report suggesting Ferrari and Red Bull will receive special deals for the next Concorde Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>There has been speculation the Bernie Ecclestone-headed Formula One Management ordered the article be pulled from the internet because it divulged secret plans about the teams&#8217; deals and a $10 billion stock market floatation.<\/p>\n<p>But the Financial Times (FT) reports that it was parent company BSkyB&#8217;s chief executive Jeremy Darroch who intervened because the article &#8220;had upset formula one racing teams&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The producer of Sky&#8217;s new dedicated F1 channel reportedly &#8220;called his bosses from Melbourne&#8221;, where the broadcaster was making its debut as Britain&#8217;s new full-time live host.<\/p>\n<p>He said &#8220;the article had caused a strong negative reaction from some F1 teams&#8221;, people familiar with the situation reportedly told the FT.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The piece was withdrawn for further review,&#8221; a BSkyB spokesman confirmed.\u00a0 &#8220;We stand by the story and, following that review, took the decision to re-publish on Monday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The teams alliance FOTA, which no longer involves Ferrari and Red Bull, reportedly met in the Melbourne paddock on Sunday &#8220;to discuss how to respond to the (Sky) report&#8221;, the FT continued.<\/p>\n<p>The fact the Geneva-based body no longer features two of the major top teams apparently gives Bernie Ecclestone the opportunity to agree deals with them, forcing their rivals to follow suit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;FOTA can&#8217;t sign anything with anyone,&#8221; Ecclestone scorned, before declining to discuss the reports of Ferrari and Red Bull&#8217;s special deals.<\/p>\n<p>Ferrari and CVC also declined to comment, but an unnamed senior team executive dismissed the apparent deals as &#8220;a pipe dream&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Another said the story was a typical example of Ecclestone&#8217;s &#8220;divide and conquer&#8221; tactics.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rival formula one teams complained when Sky News published a report suggesting Ferrari and Red Bull will receive special deals for the next Concorde Agreement. There has been speculation the Bernie Ecclestone-headed Formula One Management ordered the article be pulled from the internet because it divulged secret plans about the teams&#8217; deals and a $10 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,5262,317,5340,118],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15547,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15546\/revisions\/15547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}