Friday, 29.03.2024 | Deutsch | English

Todt new FIA President – Consequences for Truck Racing

29. October 2009About one week ago the Frenchman Jean Todt was elected President of the FIA. Since that time the question was posed frequently, whether this could imply any changes for the truck racing series – but that’s not very likely. The former Ferrari Formula 1 boss stands rather for the continuation of the current FIA policy. But also his opponent in the presidential election, the Finn Ari Vatanen, who is often said to be a radical reformer, is rather a conservative at heart. Vatanen, who in June 2009 failed to get re-elected to the European Parliament – where from 1999 to 2004 he represented the conservative Finnish party, and from 2004 to 2009 he was a representative of the conservative French UMP (the party the French President Nicolas Sarkozy belongs to) – decided on July 10th to run for FIA President. However, the outgoing office-holder, Max Mosley, kept pointing out Vatanen’s lacking managerial experiences, and made no secret of the fact that he deemed the Finn unsuited for the presidential chair.
On the other hand, the former delegate to the European parliament was supported by most of the big automobile and motorsport associations and probably as well by the large car manufacturers. But as in all the big sport associations such as the IOC or FIFA, to name but a few – in this case the largest ones – the majority situations in the FIA also depend on criteria that are different from the ones in a democratic state apparatus. Every association within the FIA, regardless of the number of members, has one vote. In real life and in politics this would cause a storm of protest, but in the strictly hierarchically structured sports associations it seems to be working. After all, the FIA – including all their predecessor organizations – is meanwhile 105 years old.
With Todt Mosley got a rival candidate on board who was to his own taste and who was extremely popular worldwide; and together they canvassed the smaller member countries. Vatanen accused Mosley of unfair election campaign support, and was even thinking about going to court, because he felt that the FIA apparatus was being misused in order to support Todt.
Even though matters were not carried to extremes, it became quite clear that – regardless of the outcome of the election – quite a lot of things will have to be patched up afterwards. What’s also noticeable is that during the last few months the number of members skyrocketed to 228 national automobile and motorsports associations in 132 countries – according to the latest FIA figures.
That’s why in Jean Todt’s new executive committee there are often representatives from countries that up to now did not play an important role in motorsports or as car manufacturers – for example Ecuador, Malaysia, Paraguay, The Philippines, Slovenia, Monaco, The United Arab Emirates or Kenya. Out of the 22 office holders three people are from Mexico; and New Zealand as well as Italy have 2 representatives each.
As the FIA stated, they have got a total of 100 million members in the automobile clubs; but the biggest association worldwide – the ADAC with about 17 million members – is no longer represented in the executive committee. ADAC President Peter Meyer and also Hermann Tomczyk, Sporting Director and FIA Vice-President, had been voicing their pro-Vatanen attitude earlier on. Germany is only represented in the committee by Graf von der Schulenburg, the President of the AvD; the total number of AvD members amount to around 6 % of the number of ADAC members.
The initial question was – how will this election affect the truck racing series?
Probably everything will continue as before. In fact, we can assume that the bigger part of the new panel doesn’t know about the FIA European Truck Racing Championship – which, apart from the Formula 1, is the most successful FIA series in Europe – let alone that they ever delved into the subject. The ADAC, as organizer of the most popular truck racing event worldwide which attracts around 200,000 visitors, was always the pioneer in the FIA in regard to truck racing. But from now on they won’t have hardly any opportunity to push this motorsport series at the ‘front line’. The comments on the election clearly showed that the FIA is still synonymous with the Formula 1. Hardly ever it is pointed out that there is quite a number of other motorsport series, too.
But there is a silver lining on the horizon. Jean Todt announced that as president he himself will not necessarily deal with the F1 matters, and has appointed Alan Donnelly as special F1 representative. As he said, there will be a lot of other matters to attend to, and the FIA is not only responsible for the Formula 1, but they represent many other series and also millions of motorists worldwide.