IN CONVERSATION WITH

FIA president Jean Todt

How do you think the landscape across different categories is going to look after this, as each series has its own challenges to survive?

I’m sure that a lot of small teams, a lot of medium teams, a lot of suppliers, a lot of manufacturers, they may have to review their programmes. They may be constrained to stop. I think the cost for society will be between 300 billion to 3 trillion [currency not denoted]. It’s massive – unemployment of 25 million people. Clearly all the world is today affected by the virus, and will be affected. We will see how you can be making a difference by acting properly for the restart, and that’s the challenge. Another problem we will face is the interest. Because when all this will be over, do you still want to go to a race? Do you still want to go to a sports game? Do you still want to go to the theatre? Do you still want to go to the restaurant, to the movies? You will have to learn how to start again.

Do you believe it will be possible to hold a motor race in front of fans in 2020?

I do believe so. And honestly I hope so. I hope so because I think it’s something which is needed. But again, it has to be properly done, it has to be well balanced, because as I was saying earlier, if today someone will tell you let’s go to the restaurant, honestly, you don’t feel like going to the restaurant. If it would have been three months ago, you would have jumped to go to the restaurant. Your thoughts at the moment, your brain is different. You worries, your concerns are different. It will take some time, it will come back, but I really hope that it will come back better. I really hope that people will realise how fragile is human nature – that we don’t have any reasons to be full of ourselves. We must be very humble. When you see earthquakes are arriving in Indonesia, you see the beaches destroyed, buildings destroyed, thousands of people dead, you don’t feel so much concern. You are sad, but you don’t feel so much concern, because you think it will not happen to me. When you see a volcano erupting, you think the same. And here, you see something which is affecting all of us.

How many races do you think are realistic? 15-18 seems very optimistic...

Once we know we can start, I think we could see two to three grands prix a month. If we start in July/august and go to December, we have from five to six months, multiplied by three and it gives you one option. But don’t forget we may face situations where one organiser can host the event safely and eventually feels ‘I don’t feel in the mood to host the event’. An event is a celebration, and we may be in a situation where everything is put together to do it but there is no real feeling to celebrate.

There are concerns not all the current F1 teams will survive this crisis. The FIA has done a lot with factory shutdowns and regulation delay, but what else needs to be done and what else can be done to help save the current ten teams?

I don’t want to be too confident, but I hope a few team owners or team sponsors will keep the motivation. That’s why we must make sure we don’t discourage them, because they may say “OK, after all of that, what is the purpose?

Do I still like it? Do I still need it?” We must encourage them to make sure they still like it and they still need it. That has been in Formula 1 since the existence of Formula 1, people coming and leaving. I hope at this present time they will stay. That’s why we must listen to everybody. Even the big ones, you must never take anything for granted. We must consider everything. Again, we must be humble – we love it but it is not essential for society. We must make sure we make proper choices, proper decisions.

Another talking point before Australia was the Ferrari engine issue, your press release and teams’ responses. Do you understand why this original group of teams was unhappy?

I would think they are right to be curious. But on the other side, the way the FIA have approached it, they have done it in the most professional way they could do it. For months, our technicians have been on the back of Ferrari to try to understand [if] what they were doing was regular, legal or not legal. We ran very, very complex verifications to try to understand the problem. We changed the [fuel flow] regulations for 2020 where we were sure that it will not [leave] any kind of ambiguity with the regulations. We think what Ferrari did was not legal, which they debated. They said ‘it is legal’. I could have decided to give that to the court of appeal. We don’t know what would have been decided by the court of appeal – it may have taken years, which was not in the interest of Formula 1. I would love to be able to give all the details of the situation. But they [Ferrari] were opposed. So, they have been sanctioned but we cannot give the detail of the sanction. Unfortunately, it is very much a fait accompli of technical matters. Because our technicians say “we cannot for sure demonstrate as much as we should that they [Ferrari] were not legal”.

“AN EVENT IS A CELEBRATION, AND WE MAY BE IN A SITUATION WHERE EVERYTHING IS PUT TOGETHER, BUT THERE IS NO REAL FEELING TO CELEBRATE”

Shortly after the postponed Australian GP the FIA president gave a rare interview to the Motorsport Network in which he discussed the crisis facing motorsport, F1’s place in a POST-COVID-19 world, and the FIA’S handling of the 2019 Ferrari engine controversy