Motorsport story by Gareth Bowman, Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:04:00 GMT


OXFORD, England - The Williams team has inked an agreement to stay on with the Formula One until 2008 as a part of protecting the sport from a split. This agreement called the Concorde agreement has already been signed by Midland F1 (Jordan), Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.

This agreement means that Honda, Toyota, BMW, Renault and McLaren-Mercedes are still on the other side of the fence and are looking to establish a separate championship.

Signing the agreement to continue to e a part of the FIA, Sir Frank Williams said, "I hope our decision will encourage the remainder of the formula one community to join us and resolve any final details by working together. We all have a duty to avoid a damaging split and I believe the undertakings we have from FOM [Ecclestone's operating company Formula One Management] and the FIA provide a fair basis for bringing everyone together in the interests of the sport."

He added that the battle between the car makers and Ecclestone is nearing an end as the former has committed to sharing the annual rights' income speculated to be $800 million (£460 million) fairly with all teams.

Chris Chapple, the Williams team's CEO voice similar thoughts. He felt that the threat to conduct a second series had served its purpose by waking up those concerned, “But it has now served its purpose and it's time for all parties concerned to get together to resolve the few outstanding issues to guarantee the long-term interests of the sport," he said. He added that the time had come to defuse the whole situation.

Williams' decision to sign this deal comes as no surprise since the team has parted ways with BMW at the end of last season. This means that Williams can no longer count on BMW to bail them out with their engines. Hence an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone can keep their cash flowing as they can now shell out $18 million (£10 million) for Cosworth V8s in the coming season.

Till now the teams were sharing 47 percent of the commercial rights' income. This is somewhere in the region of $37 million (£21 million). But it is being reported that this could be upped to about 50 percent, which the teams believe is a fair deal.

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