Chase Carey: 'We can unilaterally impose the Concorde agreement on teams'

In order to race, a clear set of agreements is needed between all teams, Liberty Media and other parties involved. These are brought together under the 'Concorde Agreement' which is now open for new discussions. It is important that all parties reach an agreement, otherwise there would be 'no' racing from 2021 onwards. Some decisions have already been made, but the signatures are still missing.

No signatures yet

The biggest news earlier this week was that the teams had agreed to introduce a $145 million budget cap. Although there is agreement on that, nobody seems to have signed it yet. At least, that's what Forbes writes, which also indicates that a new Concorde agreement should be in place in a reasonable period of time.

Chase Carey tells Forbes: "We had been in the final stages of completing the Concorde Agreement when the coronavirus crisis turned everything on its head. We decided to put the Concorde on the backburner for the short term and prioritize addressing issues relating to 2020 first."

Ready for 90 percent

Zak Brown of McLaren expects it to be completed quickly, he says: "I think there will be a Concorde Agreement. We were very close to signing. A lot of teams were and there was a lot of paperwork going back and forth so it was very well advanced."

"It has obviously been parked in the short term because we are dealing with the crisis, but I don’t see any reason why it can’t just be picked up where it was left off because 90% of it was already agreed so we have just got to kind of finish the last 10% and everyone was engaged on that so I think we will all be signed up by the end of the year."

Take-it or leave-it

With about eight months to go, there is enough time to come to an agreement, but if that does not work then Liberty Media can and will tackle it in another way. Carey: "The reality is that once you get to 2021 we can just unilaterally say ‘these are rules of the road’ or ‘this is the structure’. We can essentially say that these are the terms under which you’re racing."

"Obviously we’re looking to conclude it with the teams but...we are able to unilaterally do that." And in that scenario it will be a 'take-it or leave-it', where everyone will have to accept the rules. If they don't accept it, that's their loss.