Briatore sees future without shareholder banks

Formula One can avoid a damaging split in 2008 by cutting the shareholder banks out of the picture, according to Renault team boss Flavio Briatore.

"In 2008, it is possible to create a brand new Formula One series that includes the teams, Bernie Ecclestone and with the FIA as a regulator, without the banks," he said in an interview published on the Renault team website this week.

Formula One's current commercial agreement between the 10 teams, the governing body and commercial supremo Ecclestone expires at the end of 2007 and the major carmakers are threatening to set up their own series from 2008.

The banks - Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers - own 75 per cent of the SLEC holding company that controls the commercial rights to the FIA-sanctioned championship.

Ecclestone's family trust controls the other 25 per cent. The banks acquired their stake after the failure of Germany's Kirch media group, which had borrowed some $1.6 billion from them.

While the FIA originally sold Ecclestone the commercial rights for a 100-year period, F1 sources say the deal contained a clause allowing the governing body to withdraw from the agreement if there was a change of control.

The banks said in March that they had wrested control of Formula One Management, which runs the sport, from Ecclestone.

The five manufacturers - Renault, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Honda and Toyota - have been pitted against Ecclestone in a battle for control but Briatore said there was no war.

Praising FIA president Max Mosley as "an intelligent, capable man who has good ideas", Briatore said there was every chance of an understanding.

"There is no war in Formula One and there won't be," declared the Italian.

"We all know what Formula One needs. We need unity, a strong FIA that supervises everybody, but also more money for the teams and manufacturers than we have at the moment.

"The FIA has nothing to do with that, it is Bernie Ecclestone, but he only has 25 per cent of the shares. The rest belongs to the banks."

Briatore, whose team are leading the championship, said the solution would be for the manufacturers to "develop a system with the FIA and Ecclestone, to which everybody is bound - including Ferrari. Then everybody will be going in the same direction for 2008."

Champions Ferrari have broken ranks with the other manufacturers in agreeing unilaterally to extend the existing commercial agreement to 2012.

"If Ferrari sees the new series working, then I am sure that will get rid of their doubts and they will join it," Briatore said.

The Renault boss added that the sport needs "a strong FIA president like Mosley as a regulator.

"But for the unity and attractiveness of the show, we need Ferrari too."

Asked whether the manufacturers could carry out their threat to set up their own championship, Briatore said: "That is not the issue.

"The real question is what will ultimately help all the stakeholders?"