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Meltdown at Milton Keynes November 2024 Vol 9 Issue 11 SINGLE COPY US $32 • UK£25 • €30 ANNUALLY US$260 • UK£205 • €240 TMFORMULA ONE’S BUSINESS MAGAZINE HERMANN TILKE’S SECRET CLUB EXPOSEDMEMORABILIA ONLINE AUCTION PT OCTOBER PT OCTOBER NOVEMBER Broad Arrow is excited to present an outstanding Swiss-based collection of over 60 helmets, most of which having been used in Formula One by well-known drivers. Highlights range from Rubens Barrichello’s race winning 2002 Indianapolis helmet to helmets used by drivers such as Jean Alesi, Daniel Ricciardo, Jacques Villeneuve, Jos Verstappen and Michael Schumacher.BusinessF1 3 TM REGULAR FEATURES Credits 4 • Letters to the Editor 4 • People Index 6 • Paddock Patter 8 - 9 • News 10 - 27 • Premature Facts 28 • Notes & Observations 30 • Lewis Webster 33 • Letter From America 34 • Motor Matters 35 • Jottings 98 COVER STORY 66 INSIGHT Fourteen years of deception 56 Cora Brinkmann, the ex-wife of Ralf Schumacher has reacted badly to the coming out of her former hus- band, accusing him of lying to her for 14 years and effectively ruining her life. Whilst the Formula One community has welcomed Schumacher’s coming out, it has not been happy with the aftermath. There is plenty of truth to Cora’s allegations that do not reflect well on the reputation of the former 6-times Grand Prix winning Formula One driver. Can Spain support a race in Santander? 52 Opportunity from disaster - Part 2 The art of fun racing At the beginning of December 2008, it became public knowledge that Honda was withdrawing from Formula One. The Japanese company had become stranded by the global recession, and got frightened about the future, leaving $200 million of cash and assets on the table which eventually proved to a lifesaver for Ross Brawn and Nick Fry, but before that could happen there was to be plenty of pain for Ross and Nick and everyone else, including number one driver, Jenson Button, stuck in this disaster. Arthur and Kay Mallock are now both dead and their successors Richard and Sue Mallock have just retired, bringing to an end the production of Mallock U2 Clubmans cars which have provided pure pleasure for hundreds of amateur gentlemen racers over the years. Richard and Sue were worthy successors but now it is the end of the line. In an extract from Paul Lawrence’s biography of Arthur Mallock, Richard’s contribution to U2 and Clubmans racing is recalled. Tilke’s secret club exposed 48 Herman Tilke has been running a secret organisation for the past five years he calls the Club of Clubs. Its existence was revealed recently after a three day conference held at Goodwood House, shortly before the Revival, attended by 150 delegates. It seems a force for good, by why the secrecy? BOOK EXTRACTS Greg Maffei must admit Andretti to F1 40 The arrival of Franco Colapinto into Formula One, al- beit temporarily, has galvanised the interest in Formu- la One in Argentina and other parts of Latin America. Sponsors have been awakened and the upside is ob- vious. But Colapinto’s arrival has demonstrated how nationalistic Formula One really is and how vital it is to get more drivers from the American continent. That means more teams, which in the short term means giving the Andretti team and the two American drivers it will bring into Formula one an entry. FEATURE Alan Rees died last month aged 86. He was the last of the four famous founders of March Engineering to depart following Graham Coaker, aged 39 in 1971, Robin Herd, aged 80 in 2019 and Max Mosley, aged 81 in 2022. Their story is that of four individuals who dared to do the impossible in 1970 and somehow managed it. The first seeds of a meltdown were sown at the Milton Keynes headquarters of Red Bull Racing when a seemingly unimportant and virtually unknown staffer at the team, called Fiona Hewitson, who turned out to be a vital cog, detonated a media explosion the effects of which have changed the 2024 Formula One season from certainty to uncertainty whilst also reshaping the future. This is the story of that calamitous eight month meltdown. 40 years ago, Rafaël Galiana crashed his go kart against old tyres and realised there had to be a better way. And he came up with the simple notion of a plastic straw bale and took it from there. 25 years later the simple but sophisticated Tecpro barrier adorns most circuits of the world, making motor racing much safer for every competitor from Formula One to historics. 76 60 The March men are all dead Meltdown at Milton Keynes Inventor of the plastic straw bale Stefano Domenicali recently flew into the northern Spanish coastal city of Santander to announce the namesake bank as a new official Formula One partner and sponsor. But all the assembled local dignitaries wanted to talk about was a street race around the historical Spanish port. Santander is now said to be the biggest provider of consumer car financing in the world, so could a Santander Grand Prix be a reality in the future? 84 92 Stroll makes Newey offer he can’t refuse 36 Adrian Newey has changed his mind about joining Scuderia Ferrari and signed on for five years hard la- bour at the coalface for Aston Martin Racing. In many ways, it was the least attractive option but the one that offered by far the most money. Lawrence Stroll has bent over backwards to give Newey everything he wants, including disposing of incumbent chief executive, Martin Whitmarsh.4 BusinessF1 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Tom Rubython CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Thomas Gibson, Oliver Edwards, Jo Maxwell, Lewis Webster CHIEF CREATIVE DESIGNER & PHOTOGRAPHER Alexander L. Sargent PHOTOGRAPHERS Darren Price, Jeff Custard WEB EDITOR Brad Dias CHIEF STATISTICIAN David Hayhoe VICE PRESIDENT - LOGISTICS David Peett EDITORS AT LARGE George Roberts, Andrew Frankl, Stefan Johansson GLOBAL AMBASSADOR Maprang Suwanbubpa FINANCE MANAGER Alex Rogers SUBSCRIPTIONS CO-ORDINATORS Daisy Macedward, Roger Smith BusinessF1 Magazine is published by BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd, Billing Wharf, The Causeway, Cogenhoe, Northampton NN7 1NH, United Kingdom Tel: 00 44 (0) 1604 698881/2 Email: editor@businessf1magazine.com Website: www.businessf1magazine.com November 2024 Volume 9 (Issue 11) BusinessF1 is published on the last Friday of every month. Title is copyright of BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd. F1 element is a recognised trademark of Formula One Licensing BV. Printed in Europe NEXT PUBLICATION DATE: The December 2024 issue of BusinessF1 Magazine is published on 4th November 2024. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Available for 12 months (12 issues) at a cost of US$280, UK£220 and €260 delivered anywhere in the world at no extra charge. Subscriptions can be ordered at www.businessf1magazine.com EDITORIAL COPYRIGHT: The contents of this magazine, both words and statistics, are strictly copyright and the intellectual property of BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd. Copying or reproduction may only be carried out with the written permission of the Publishers, which will normally not be withheld on payment of an agreed fee. ARTICLE REPRINTS: Many articles published in BusinessF1 Magazine are available as reprints by prior arrangement with the Publishers. Nor- mal minimum run for reprints is 100 but smaller quantities can be accommodated. Please contact David Peett - Vice President of Logistics. The digital age Dear Tom, I have still not had the September issue or October issue of BusinessF1. This tells me two things. Either your printer is in trouble or BusinessF1 is. Losing Business F1 would be a terrible shame in my view. However, as a subscriber, I am more than happy with the digital version and could quite happily exist without the hard copy as I suspect most of your subscribers could. Let’s face it, who doesn’t have a laptop these days? Personally, I would be happy to have just the digital version. One only has to look at the collapse in sales of the hard copy printed Autosport to see that. My view would be to bin the hard copy altogether and just go digital. I am sure a few subscribers would kick up a fuss but the majority would stay and there would be a considerable reduction in printing and distribution costs. The savings could be deployed in developing the website to introduce all sorts of interesting features, such as forums, podcasts, webcasts, online conferences et al. I think this is something that should be proposed to subscribers. And of course, you could always play the sustainability card. Yours, Richard Cooper Managing Director Cooper Racing Slaughter Ghyll Farm Sheep Plain Crowborough TN6 3ST United Kingdom The editor replies: This is the problem every magazine publisher is facing. Printed publications are no longer profitable and need a subsidy or big support from advertisers, who increasingly prefer intangible online advertising to print. BusinessF1 is no different and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that two thirds of our readers are outside of the UK where we publish from. We are also hampered by the sheer greed of the British Post Office (Royal Mail) which charges three times more for overseas mail than Post Offices in Europe and twice those of the United States. It hasn’t helped that printing and paper costs have also risen 50 percent in the past four years mainly because of the rise in energy costs, particularly high in the production of paper and print. But many of our readers like to receive a printed copy so we will carry on providing it as long as we can, albeit at a loss. We may eventually be forced to stop printing a hard copy but we hope not. Like Autosport which faces similar problems we are hanging on to the past. But our situation is not as bad as that of Motor Sport magazine which loses $100,000 on every issue it publishes. That cannot go on for ever but for now it seems it can. Filling in the backstories Dear Tom, Andre Frankl is generous to share his copy of BusinessF1 with me every month. I discovered from the July issue that you had some sort of medical issue. I hope by now that your recovery is now in the rear and normal business can be resumed for the rest of the season. I used to teach high school journalism and the quality of the writing and the wonderful humour makes every page of BusinessF1 a delight to read and Andrew is kind enough to fill in the backstories for me. Yours, Barbara Angeli Owens 156 Morning Sun Avenue Mill Valley CA 94941-3507 California United States of America The editor replies: Fortunately, I have made a full recovery from double duodenal ulcers but it was touch and go for a while. Separately, Barbara makes a interesting point about “filling in the backstories”. Unfortunately, it is too often necessary for us to leave readers to fill in the backstories for themselves. In England we call it ‘reading between the lines’. This is because of the archaic defamation laws in much of Europe and particularly London still the libel tourism capital of the world but also increasingly in the United States where it is no longer necessary for stories to be maliciously written to attract a defamation action. Witness the Claudia Schwarz/Dorliton Capital/ Williams Racing suits threading their way through various jurisdictions in America and Bermuda. I have never come across a more stupid man than Schwarz’s American lawyer, Jeremy Friedman. If you haven’t been following the story Friedman is defending Schwarz over her overcharging Williams Racing $7 million for marketing services and for seducing one of its directors. Friedmann is also suing BusinessF1 for printing a photograph of him in 2022, claiming “unauthorised use of his image”. More ludicrously he is asking for a separate ‘jury trial’ over the ‘unauthorised’ use of his photograph. Separately Friedman is suing Uncle Tom Cobbly and all for Dorilton and Williams for daring to ask for its $7 million back. As I said, a very stupid man. I’m back Dear Tom, It’s very reassuring you are back at your desk after your health scare. I was able to read the excellent magazine online in the meantime and now look forward to receiving the printed copies again. I do prefer to read the actual printed word in the magazine. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned At 80 years young. Yours, Chris Hague Via email: 750hague@gmail.com The editor replies: Yes, as Donald Trump would say ‘I’m back’. I interviewed Donald Trump in 1994 and every answer to every question was “I’m back.” I then turned the tape recorder off and said the story wouldn’t be going ahead because, as creative writer as I am, even I couldn’t make a story out of that solitary reply. He look at me squinted and said ‘okay’ and then I got the great story we all know Trump is capable of delivering. I also imported his first book ‘The Art of the Deal’ into the UK in 1997, before Amazon. I have to say hardly anyone was impressed – but it was certainly different. A Agag, Alejandro20 Agini, Samuel20 Akagi, Akira83 Albon, Alex17 Allison, James52 Alonso, Fernando21, 52, 55 Amon, Chris78, 79 Andretti, Mario19, 40-43, 46 Andretti, Michael41-47 Antonelli, Kimi13 B Ballmer, Steve40 Barrichello, Rubens86, 87, 91 Bates, Ken26 Ben Sulayem, Mo23, 27,43 Beuttler, Mike57, 81 Bhoyrul, Anil26 Bigois, Loïc87, 91 Binotto, Mattia12, 13, 98 Bishop, Matt30 Black, Conrad26 Blake Turner, Peter68 Blundell, Mark75 Botín, Ana21, 52, 53, 54, 55 Botín, Emilio21, 52, 54, 55 Bottas, Valtteri13 Bourdais, Sebastien64, 65 Bousquet-Cassagne, Étienne 56, 58, 59 Bower, James23 Boxall-Legge, Jake30 Brambilla, Vittorio81 Branson, Richard86, 89 Bravi, Alessandro Alunni12 Brawn, Ross84-91, 98 Briatore, Flavio25, 30, 35 Brinkmann, Cora56, 59 Brise, Tony91 Broadley, Eric78 Brown, Creighton94, 95 Brown, Zak42 Brundle, Martin13, 28, 35 Buncombe, Chris89 Burns, Richard87 Button, Jenson85-91, 98 C Cabral, Mário de Araújo57 Campbell, Naomi28 Capelli, Ivan82 Capito, Jost23 Carey, Chase11 Carling, Nicole75 Carnegie, Andrew51 Cendoya, Juan Manuel21, 55 Chamberlain, Hugh93 Chapman, Colin34, 71, 81 Chester, Nick44, 46 Clark, Jim91 Clark, Roger95 Clear, Jock87 Coaker, Carol77 Coaker, Graham76-81 Cochran, Rob90 Colapinto, Franco17, 40, 55 Cole, Simon87 Collier, Mike89 Collins, Peter42 Cook, Deryck93 Cook, Tim22 Cooper, Adam13, 45, 47 Coppuck, Gordon82, 83 Costin, Mike77 Coulthard, David73, 98 Courage, Piers81 Courtenay, Will75 Cowell, Andy53, 55 Cowen, John83 D Danner, Christian82 Davies, Vernon92, 94 Dennis, Ron34, 54 Diamond, Andy93 Döllner, Gernot12 Domenicali, Stefano11, 19, 21, 27, 41-43, 45, 52-55 Doohan, Jack13 E Eaton, Abbie57 Ecclestone, Bernie27, 34, 35, 51, 55, 64, 82 Elkann, John18 Elliott, Trevor92 Ellison, Larry40 Ellis, Paul92 Evans, Marcus89 F Fallows, Dan28 Fayed, Mohammed Al26 Fitton, Andrew83 Flewitt, Mike3 Foti, Julia15 Frankl, Andrew35 Fry, Nick85- 91, 98 G Galiana, Rafaël60, 61, 64 Galisteu, Adriane15 Garvey, Darren14, 15 Gasly, Pierre27 Gath, Tim93 Gay-Rees, James15 Geiss, Carmen56, 58, 59 Goddard, Richard89, 90, 98 Goldin, Julia16 Goodell, Roger9 Goss, Tim93 Green, Andrew28 Gurdjian, Philippe64 H Haggis Le Sueur, Robert92, 93 Häkkinen, Mika64 Halliwell, Geri68 Hamilton, Lewis13, 23, 34, 55, 75 Haren, Erik van69-72, 74 Hawkins, Jess57 Haywood, Hurley58 Head, Patrick30, 94, 95 Herd, Robin76-83 Herta, Colton46 Hess, Sylvia66 Hewitson, Fiona55, 66-75 Hill, Graham93 Hinchcliffe, James75 Holbert, Al82 Horner, Christian55, 66-75 Horner, Geri72 Horner, Monty72 Horner, Olivia72 Hunt, James81 Hunt, Tim23 Hutchison, Julia26 I Igual, Gema52, 53, 55 J Jagger, Nigel26 Jansen, Paul71, 72 Jarier, Jean-Pierre81 Johnson, Dustin22 John Wingfield93 Jones, Laura25 Jordan, Eddie52-55, 88, 89 K Kalkhoven, Kevin71, 75 Kallakis, Achilleas90 Kanaan, Tony75 Kane, Frank26 Ka-Shing, Li26 Kelly, Jonathan68, 69 Kennigham, Giles69 Kenyon, Peter18 Kerr, Nigel98 Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal22 Kim, Vladimir9 Kirchmayr, Alexander66, 69 Klobuchar, Amy43 Kniewasser, Thomas66, 70, 72 Koepka, Brooks22 Kollakis, Stefan89 Kristiansen, Ole Kirk16 L Lauda, Niki80 Lawrence, Paul95 Lawson, Liam13 Leiters, Michael, 3 Leone, Gabriel15 Lewis, Martin89 Llowarch, Duncan11 Lombardi, Lella57, 81 Lord, Jeremy92 Lores, Enrique19 Lowdon, Graeme41, 44, 45 M Maffei, Greg9, 19, 20, 22, 40, 41-47 Mallock, Arthur90-95 Mallock, Kay90 Mallock, Richard92, 95 Mallock, Sue95 Mallya, Vijay88, 89, 98 Malone, John20, 43, 45 Marko, Dr Helmut28, 66, 69, 75 Marler, Sid95 Marshall, Rob74 Mateschitz, Dietrich9, 55, 66, 68-75, 91 Matthews, Fred93 Maylander, Bernd65 Mazepin, Dmitry9 McAteer, Caroline68 McAtominey, Sarah69 McCullough, Tom28 McEvoy, Jonathan73 McGrory, Caroline44, 45 McLaren, Bruce77, 81 McNally, Patrick27 McQuilliam, John44 Meadows, Ron87 Meo, Luca De30, 35, 43 Michibata, Jessica88 Mickelson, Phil22 Mintzlaff, Oliver66, 69, 73, 75 Modena, Stefano82 Moore, Sarah57 Mosley, Max34, 60, 62, 76-83, 94, 95 Murray, Gordon34 N Neri, Antonio19 Newey, Adrian9, 28, 30, 52, 53-70, 73-75, 82, 83 Newey, Amanda73 Newey, Marigold55 Neymar27 Nicholls, Don79 Nye, Doug48 O Oakes, Oliver25, 30, 35 Ocon, Esteban13 Oliver, Jackie79 O’Reilly, Tony26 O’Rourke, Dermot55 Owen, John87, 88 P Paris, Mick95 Patterson, Alan14, 15 Perez, Sergio17, 55, 75 Pescarolo, Henri81 Peterson, Ronnie77, 79-81 Piano, Renzo54 Poole, Jayne28 Postlethwaite, Harvey94, 95 Pratt, Joy25 Prazer, Emily11, 16 Pryce, Tom91 Pujolar, Xevi12 Purley, David81 Purnell, Tony28 R Ramsay, Gordon27 Rausing, Finn12 Rees, Alan76, 77, 79, 80, 81 Ricciardo, Daniel13 Richardson, Jeremy92 Richmond, Duke of98 Rindt, Jochen79 Riva-Herrera, Santiago de Mora y Fernández54 Rockefeller, John D51 Rohonyi, Tamas35 Ronaldo, Christiano22 Russell, George13 Ryan, Tony26 S Sadler, Josh95 Sáenz de Buruaga, María José52, 53, 55 Sainz, Carlos13, 17, 21, 52, 55 Salzer, Stefan66, 69 Sargeant, Harry17 Sargeant, Logan17 Sauber, Peter98 Schenken, Tim91 Schiff, Naomi35 Schmid, Günter82 Schumacher, Corinna59 Schumacher, David56, 58 Schumacher, Michael58, 64 Schumacher, Ralf23, 56, 58, 59 Schwarz, Claudia23 Seidl, Andreas12 Senna, Ayrton15, 60 Senna, Bruno85 Sharpley, Mark94, 95 Shnaider, Alex89 Shovlin, Andrew85, 87 Shuji, Zoltan35 Siffert, Jo78, 79 Silva, Neyde Da15 Slim, Carlos88 Stanbury, Noel95 Stewart, Jackie78, 79, 82, 89 Stroll, Lawrence30, 44, 52, 53, 54, 71 Stuck Jnr, Hans81 Sturland, Laura44, 45 Sugar, Alan26 Surtees, John90 Symonds, Pat45 Szafnauer, Otmar54 T Tai, Alex89 Tauranac, Ron82, 83 Taylor, Simon30 Thatcher, Mark26 Tilke, Hermann10, 48, 50, 51 Todt, Jean62 Tomlinson, Jon44 Tost, Franz90, 98 Towriss, Cassidy43 Towriss, Dan46, 47 Trump, Donald46 Tyrrell, Ken78, 79 V Vanderbilt, Cornelius51 Verstappen, Jos66, 69-75 Verstappen, Max23, 34, 52, 53, 69-75 Vettel, Sebastian30, 91, 98 Vigna, Benedetto18 Vowles, James17, 23, 30, 87 W Wache, Pierre73, 74 Walkinshaw, Tom30 Ward, Steve83 Warr, Peter71 Watzlawick, Franz66, 69 Webber, Mark91 Wheatcroft, Tom81 Wheatley, Jonathan12, 13, 75 Whitmarsh, Martin52, 53, 55, 91 Williams, Alex89 Williams, Frank81, 90 Williamson, Roger81, 91 Wilm, Rene11 Wingfield, John93 Wingfield, Peter93 Winklemann, Roy79 Wirth, Nick14, 15 Wisell, Reine81 Woodward Hill, Sacha11 Wragg, David93 Y Yoovidhya, Chalerm69, 72, 74 Z Zehnder, Beat12 Zwart, Klaas10, 65 6 BusinessF1 PeopleIndexOriginal Paintings • Posters • Autographs • Automobilia T: (+44) 1327 858 167 E: info@speedsport.co.uk www.speedsport-gallery.com speedsport gallery DEXTER BROWN: Collaged painting of Manfred von Brauchitsh depicted in 1938 during a pitstop in a Mercedes Benz W154. Gouache on board 26 cm x 19 cm The speedsport gallery has an exclusive range of very high quality original paintings, posters and autographed items for sale. Owned and run with passion by former racer Mike O’Brien, the speedsport gallery is conveniently located near the main entrance of Silverstone Circuit.Tom Rubython Editor-in-Chief Editor’s Letter 8 Adrian Newey had a signed contract, which now turns out to be a loosely worded option, to join Ferrari for three years at a salary of $105 million or $35 million a year and pay only 13 percent tax (see above). Instead, Eddie Jordan, his astute manager, has got him what amounts to at best less than $5 million a year more to go to Aston Martin Racing. Isn’t it everyone’s dream in Formula One to end their careers with Ferrari? It certainly was Ayrton Senna’s and Lewis Hamilton’s but Newey has spurned the opportunity. Well, that’s the problem with having Eddie Jordan as your business manager. His dreams come before yours and his dreams are all green tinted, if you know what I mean. Eddie Jordan thinks he is cute. But is he that cute? Adrian Newey will earn a minimum of $200 million at Aston Martin Racing over the next five years. But he will pay at least 45 percent of that in British income tax, some $90 million over five years, or $18 million a year. He will still get to keep $22 million every year – not too shabby. But if Newey had taken Ferrari’s offer, he would have been eligible for 13 percent personal income tax and paid just $13.8 million over the three years, or $4.6 million a year under Italy’s Regime of Expatriates (Regime degli Impatriati) rules. The Agenzia delle Entrate scheme is very generous and offers a very special rate for expats, designed for non-Italians who move to Italy to work. It amounts to a 70 percent discount off Italy’s higher rate of tax of 43 percent. In essence after tax, Ferrari’s offer was probably superior to Aston Martin’s to the tune of some $30 million over five years. It is also very likely that the new Labour government in Britain will raise the highest tax rate from 45 percent to 50 percent which will cost Newey another $10 million over the length of the contract. Eddie Jordan has never had to worry about tax as he has been a non-dom for many years and even when he wasn’t, his personal cut of the old Jordan’s team’s sponsorship deals (which was considerable) was paid to a company called Black Bear in Ireland and the British tax man never saw any of it. Eddie will also pay no tax on his commission said to be $20 million which will go straight to Black Bear in Ireland. The most remarkable moment in a remarkable year for big stories came on the afternoon of Sunday 14th September when McLaren Racing overtook Red Bull Racing for leadership of the 2024 Constructors World Championship. How could this have happened after Max Verstappen won seven out of the opening 10 races? Max Verstappen has literally fallen off his perch since Miami when Adrian Newey effectively left the team. It was huge mistake for Christian Horner to suspend Newey from the race team immediately after he announced he was leaving. Effectively he suspended him to stop him taking Red Bull’s secrets to his next team, at that time thought to be Ferrari. But Red Bull’s secrets were all Newey’s secrets, so what was the point of suspending him. It is going to cost Red Bull Racing $14 million to keep Newey on gardening leave until the start of next season. It may as well have kept him working on the payroll. Newey is basically an honourable man with a lot of pride and he would have kept doing his best for the team until he left. In fact, it would have been in his best interests to keep doing his best for the team. Suspending Newey was a huge mistake for which Red Bull Racing will pay dearly if, as expected, it loses out on both constructors and drivers world championships this year. Everyone was surprised when Red Bull Racing renewed Sergio Perez’s driving contract until the end of 2026. Perez’s two-year contract extension had been nailed on long before after he fervently supported Christian Horner during the sex scandal imbroglio at the start of the year. Perez was a lone voice within Red Bull Racing willing to speak out in the team principal’s favour when everyone else thought he would be fired. But that is not the reason that Perez’s contact has been renewed. It has been renewed because of his status in Mexico and Latin America generally. In Mexico he is a god. If Red Bull has not renewed his contract the backlash would have been huge and there may even have been a boycott of the energy drink in the whole of Latin America. Red Bull energy drink sales have exploded since Perez was signed in 2020 and isn’t that what Formula One sponsorship is all about and why Red Bull goes racing. Perez sums it up well when he says; “I am delighted to be staying here to continue our journey together and contribute to this team’s great history for two more years.” And as Christian Horner rightly states: “Who would we replace him with.”9 BusinessF1 David Coulthard broadcasts a podcast called Formula for Success and often has Eddie Jordan on as a guest. But surely, he should expect his guest to at least sometimes tell the truth. Eddie manages about five percent of the truth, if even that. Yet David appears to lap it up, at least for public consumption. One imagines he really knows what a lying, cheating scoundrel his guest really is. And he probably does know his guest is talking absolute nonsense - in Eddie’s case absolute nonsense is an alternative phrase for absolute lies. Eddie Jordan is incapable of telling the truth in general dialogue and there is never a situation where that is not true. But it’s not actually Eddie’s fault because his psychological make up means that in his head, and I make this comment genuinely and honestly, Eddie believes what he says is the truth and he cannot distinguish a lie in the same sense most human beings do. Having said all that, I do like Eddie Jordan. When he was active in Formula One, we called him out many times and he always took it on the chin – well what else could he do? We remained friendly (rather than friends) throughout it all. Our former photographer, Graham Fudger took a lovely photo of Eddie pulling back his arm ready to biff me during a reception at the RAC Club in London many years ago. When the flash went off, Eddie withdrew his fist. Whether he intended to go through with it – who knows? Adrian Newey has made a mistake employing Eddie Jordan as his business manager although it may take him a few years to find that out. Let’s hope Adrian’s Aston Martin salary is being paid direct to him rather than through Eddie, especially his Irish company called Black Bear. If it is then Adrian will need a very good forensic accountant and plenty of money for legal fees in a few years time. Don’t take my word for it, ask Eddie’s former partners at the Jordan Formula One team. They caught him out having nicked £14 million ($20 million) from the company and made him pay it back. Which he did after being threatened with jail time. If you come across Dominic Shorthouse, who is still around, he will confirm it. That is before the 20 percent commission Eddie took on every sponsorship deal, he signed for his own Jordan team. Make no mistake, every business arrangement Eddie has with Adrian will have a cut for Eddie. He knows no other way. Adrian should start with Oyster Yachts and ask his manager how much commission Eddie is getting on Adrian’s new Oyster 885, 90 foot yacht. The yacht is costing Adrian around $10 million and Eddie’s cut will be around $750,000. Does Adrian know this? Maybe he does, but most likely he doesn’t. There is a story that you won’t read about in this month’s BusinessF1 because it is the beginning of the end of a bigger story, the end of which may never be told. Obviously, we would like it to be told, because that is what we do. Last month, I argued vigorously to allow the story to be told, but my arguments may well have fallen on less than receptive ears. But that is the way of the world and the decisions of the judiciary must be respected, even if they are disagreeable. Myself and others have what we believe are incredibly good arguments, but we must sit back and allow matters to take the course they take because of the rightful respect we all have for the judiciary. And that is as far as I can go, and probably as far as I will be allowed to go, reporting a story you will probably never be able to read about, or even know about. I am used to calling out the great and good of Formula One especially when they accept grandiose awards and honours that are mostly undeserved, mean absolutely nothing and will turn up in junk boxes at auctions when the recipients eventually turn to dust. Max Mosley was awarded the French Legion d’Honneur in 2006. He wasted the time of the great and good and insisted they come to a Paris hotel to see him receive the bauble from two French long forgotten ministers called Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jean-Francois Lamour. A bit of research showed this was the lowest level honour, normally given to post mistresses and local councillors for long service. But Max seemed to love the recognition but probably not when we told him the truth about it. So when the same nonsense happened to one of our own last month, I refused to be a hypocrite. The Hungarian National Automobilsport Federation of Hungary (MNASZ) has given our columnist, Andrew Frankl a lifetime whatever award for his contribution to motorsport and dragged him off to Budapest to receive the hideous doorstop. Amazingly Hungarian television crews turned out to see Andrew given the trophy by President Zoltan Shuji who made a made a nice speech and handed him the doorstop. The trophy which shows the outline of the Hungaroring is truly ugly. The people who were there, then went to the bar and each insisted on buying Andrew a drink. The result was our now ‘award winning columnist’ who will probably demand a doubled fee, got hideously drunk and insisted everyone in the bar get their smartphones so he could pose for them with the doorstop. He then passed out and fell over but the hideous trophy, unfortunately, remained intact. This is the truth of the story but you will read Andrew’s very different account of it in next month’s BusinessF1. Better believe his version than mine. If I ever get the call from Buckingham Palace for an MBE you can ridicule me. But you won’t get the pleasure because my refusal letter is already written. As Andrew’s and Max’s should have been. Russell Crowe got his fictional Legion D’Honneur for acting. Max Mosley got his Legion D’Honneur for you know what. Andrew Frankl got his Hungarian equivalent for talking.Next >