IRFA-CCTA War

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The IRFA-CCTA War was an ongoing dispute between the International Racing Federation of Automobiles (IRFA), the sanctioning body of Champ Car (or the Champ Car World Series), and the newly formed Champ Car Teams Association (CCTA).

New Regulations

There were many talks of new regulations for the Yr41 season to combat certain issues such as over-spending and environmentally friendly policies. However, the IRFA decided that the Yr42 Regulations would be almost unaltered, with a couple of regulations left unchanged.

Before the CCTA was founded, a major overhaul in regulations only needs the approval of the IRFA Council, but any major changes to one regulation requires 75% approval from the Council and the teams' representatives combined. So in all technicality, the IRFA could pass a new set of regulations without the teams knowing.

So naturally, when the new regulations came out for the Yr43 season, all the teams went mad. Introduced before the Portuguese GP in Yr42, it gave a new perspective on limiting spending in Champ Car (since the IRFA was against any over-spending that would jeopardize any teams' well-being, such as Red Bull Racing, Brabham, and EuroBrun among other examples). Some of these regulations called for a change in the chassis to make it much "simpler" for designers (i.e. there are no known loopholes), limiting spare parts so if someone has to change engines to avoid retirement, they have to serve a 10-place grid penalty, limiting the amount of tyres used in a weekend (which will no doubt hurt the "romance" between Champ Car and Bridgestone), making the engines small in size, weight, and capacity, and - among other things, a budget cap that combines all the revenues made by the teams and dividing them evenly. And if all the teams meet within the budget for the year, they have unlimited freedom from the Regulations for the Chassis and engine for the next season as well. And all under the name of cost-cutting and eco-friendly measures.

Reactions

Naturally, all the teams were pissed off about the changes. But they all had different views:

  • Ferrari, Williams, Mercedes, Arrows, Toyota, RCA, Penske and Valvoline were all opposed to it since they would have to give money to the smaller teams
  • Rosenforth and Tyrrell, who ran under limited budgets, were concerned that the new regulations would cause costs to go up, not down
  • All the teams (minus Toyota, Ferrari and Mercedes) were concerned that the new regulations would drive manufacturers out of the sport - namely Mitsubishi and BMW, who ran the two teams respectively, and with no manufacturers in the sport they can't have engines and thus - no teams, while the three manufacturers left in the sport (see above) were worried they would have to lend out engines to other teams - something that would skyrocket costs for their teams. (Especially Ferrari - an engine alone costs 3 million dollars US!)

The IRFA's reaction to the harsh criticism was that manufacturers would find out that they would have to cut down on costs, but as Ferrari boss Alex Matzarelli pointed out, that would increase unreliability (something Ferrari could combat well), and as a result, new engines would have to be made. As quoted by Matzarelli himself, "if one wants to make an engine bulletproof, he would not pay the mechanic a bucket and a shoestring."

Founding of CCTA

So, Matzarelli, Hiro Fujimori (Toyota), Frank Williams and Max Richards (RCA) combined forces and got their teams together to create the Champ Car Teams' Association, and managed to get every team (sans Tyrrell, who declined the offer to join) onto the CCTA. Then they met with each other during the three-week gap between the Portuguese GP and the German GP and set themselves these goals:

  • To reject and overrule the Yr43 Champ Car Regulations.
  • To change the regulations so that CCTA teams have a say in major overhauls
  • To be able to directly submit changes to the regulations, instead of having to obtain the approval at the Council's mercy
  • To be equal in power to the IRFA

Of course, the final goal would be reached at a later date, but the CCTA knew that if the fourth goal occurred, they would be in complete control of Champ Car - something that they have wanted for years.

With all this mess, the IRFA were concerned that the CCTA would impose a strike at the end of the season - much like the "Five-Day Strike" which occured shortly before half the teams from Champ Car were kicked out after the Yr37 season.

Discussions between IRFA and CCTA

Five days after the Portuguese GP, the media was frenzied over rumours about the CCTA combating the changes made by the IRFA. And although Tomáš Wiesner, the President of the IRFA, initially called them "left-wing propaganda dealers," he calmed down and decided that the CCTA would be able to change the Regulations, through the use of negotiation. Many people questioned that mediation or arbitration was not considered, however, the CCTA agreed and talks immediately were underway. However, Fermin Lagrange, one of the Vice-Presidents of the IRFA, claimed that the IRFA is unlikely to make a change in the new regulations "without reason."

At first, it seemed that the talks were going to be very calm, as when Matzarelli (who we believe was the President of the CCTA) brought up that changes to the chassis would rise costs, and gave evidence of the estimates of costs between the old chassis and having to scrap everything and develop a new chassis, Wiesner and the IRFA agreed that the chassis shall stay the same for Yr43. Success! Or was it? Soon enough, a 15-minute break was called when the engine regulations were attempted to be talked down in the same manner, when Wiesner called for a brief recess. It was given, and according to Henry Bate, one of the Council members, Wiesner let everyone know that he "was not going to allow any more change to the regulations," since Wiesner thought that "all on the CCTA are just giving me false information to deceive us and not follow-through with our plans."

After they returned, Wiesner quickly shot down any changes to the regulations on the engines, and claimed to be going ahead as planned by making everyone use V6s. Then Matzarelli brought up the topic on the "two-tiered" budget cap, to which the discussions quickly turned into a two-horse verbal fight. While Wiesner claimed that the "two-tier" budget cap would encourage teams to limit costs and make technological advancements, Matzarelli and the CCTA thought that the budget cap would limit how much money one's team would have, and as a result, limit technological advancements. (This is where the 'shoestring' quote came from.) Soon enough, having spent about 80 minutes "discussing," security had to be called in as both parties were reported to have been pushing and shoving in "pure disagreement." Talks seized for about three days as the IRFA and all the teams were preparing for the German GP.

"Pure Disagreement"

Those words, spoken by an unknown reporter, did not know that those words would become the understatement of the decade, as both parties were nowhere close to an agreement. Even worse, it was found out that Scott Sharp, another Council member, was appointed the CCTA as the Council's representative. As a result, Sharp was booted out of the Council and replaced by Jeremy Stanfeld, or as Matzarelli remarked, "a hired goon." Sharp claims he accepted the appointment so that he could learn both sides of the story and act as a mediator, instead of "useless bickering and bias papers and documents."

With just over a week to go until the German GP commenced, the CCTA and the IRFA met again in Munich. But instead of sharing one table in the middle of the room like in Lisbon, there were two tables, in a hotel meeting room, one for the CCTA and the other for the IRFA. This meeting is better known as the "eight-minute meeting," in which Matzarelli, after hearing a two-minute speech from Wiesner on having sustainable practices in sport, ranted for six minutes of why the "two-tier" budget was a bad idea, and why the regulations would, in Matzarelli's words, "destroy Champ Car," and stormed out of the meeting along with the rest of the CCTA. Although the rest of the meetings went on for longer than that, it was forever known as the finest example of how far apart the two parties were from meeting an agreement. And to make things worse - the next day a British court nullified the Bertaggia Agreement from Yr43 onwards, saying that the changes to the regulations is so huge that a new agreement would have to be signed.

Within a week, Champ Car was now once again under threat of splitting into two again.

Yr42 German Grand Prix

Eventually things got to a head when they met again four days later. At this point, they were still arguing, although for longer times (rather than eight minutes.) However, as the discussions raged on, it got to a point when Matzarelli got together a petition to reject the new regulations. He got eight teams to sign the petition: Ferrari (duh), Mercedes, Williams, Arrows, Toyota, Team Wales, Valvoline and RCA. Foxdale and Penske, although opposed to the regulations, did not sign the petition, and Rosenforth and Tyrrell decided not to sign unless Matzarelli adopted "reasonable negotiation methods." With eight out of the twelve teams (3/4) signed on to the, at the time, unnamed agreement, Wiesner dismissed the petition, since "not all of the teams were in consensus in the petition.

Shortly after this, the eight teams who signed the petition (tentatively called the Hockenheim Agreement), furious over Wiesner's abrupt turndown of the petition, decided to boycott the German GP, but take part in qualifying, and pull into the pits before the start of the race on the warmup lap to make it more dramatic, and to show that "the CCTA is serious about not having these regulations."

As a result, only eight cars took part in the race, being from Penske, Foxdale, Tyrrell and Rosenforth. Johnathan Franzen won the race, followed by Sergio Perez (Penske), Jamie Gonzalez, Pedro Lamy (Foxdale), James Jones, Andre Tille (Tyrrell), Perry McCarthy and Louis Oosthuizen (Rosenforth). During the race, fans threw debris onto the gravel (local cautions were put out throughout the race), some commentators left, others made a comedy show out of the race (with the English broadcasters inviting the entire crew on the set), another spoke curse words in a different language (The german broadcasters spoke curse words in Swedish), and at the end of the race, a mob of spectators invaded the pitlane and attempted to light the IRFA garage on fire. And in Munich, another mob burned down the German offices in a riot. In the end, the IRFA declared that the race was a "non-race," and that the results would not count.

Punishments

With the race in Germany in shambles, the organisers said that the IRFA would have to pay them money to refund the spectators. The IRFA agreed, but said that they would not pay it out of their own pockets, but rather from the eight teams which boycotted the race. All of them turned down this proposal, claiming that "The IRFA was responsible for what happened in Germany." Meanwhile, all 12 teams had signed the petition, as Penske and Foxdale said that "although we don't entirely agree with the CCTA's views and actions, we think that in the end, the petition makes sense and we will sign, if only to attempt to get our hard-earned results back, and to avoid non-results in the future." According to Tyrrell and Rosenforth, they both had plans to sign the petition at a later date, but the non-result hastened the process.

Inevitably, the eight teams which boycotted the race were sued by the IRFA for 12 million euros in damages following the events of the Yr42 German Grand Prix. Then all the teams threatened to leave the sport entirely and form a new racing league called the "Grand Prix World Championship," in which the CCTA would control the league and all teams would have a say in the regulations. The lawsuit only sped up the process, at least according to Matzarelli.

Aftermath

Eventually as talks died down to a halt, the focus on the war calmed down as well, as there was nothing else to report. However, when the season ended in San Diego, members of the IRFA and CCTA briefly met there before having some more arguments and left after two days.

The court case was eventually solved and the jury found the eight teams not responsible for causing the boycott and did not have to pay the 12 million euro fine. The jury also ruled that the IRFA was in no position to impose new regulations without a vote and declared that the IRFA could no longer sanction Champ Car races. Wiesner and 10 members of the council resigned (Jean-Denis Deletraz and Henry Bate being the exceptions), while Fermin Lagrange stayed on as interim President (his second such term) to tie up loose ends with the settlement, and Jeffrey Basque stayed on as the vice-president. Eventually, the remnants of the IRFA and the entirety of the CCTA met in Rochester, New York, and merged together, creating the International Racing Association (IRA, and signing an agreement, being called the Rochester Agreement.

Then they appointed Jeffrey Basque as President while they figured out the regulations for the Yr43 season, and were approved by a court to sanction the Champ Car races. The original document was signed by Basque, but since he technically represented the now-defunct IRFA, it was not technically official. Still, the teams decided to agree in principle, and the Yr43 season would go as planned.

Scott Sharp was intended for the role of President, but declined, saying that he had no intention to run a potentially "unstable" sanctioning board, perferring someone who had somewhat of a experience of running a sanctioning board. Says Sharp, "I don't have any experience myself."

Well, not quite

The newly formed IRA (now quickly renamed the IRC, the International Racing Commission) was a mess, to say the least. For the first third of the season, it was run by the CCTA and appointed representatives from their own teams (basically meaning each team got two representatives on the council). Then, after the Yr43 Chinese GP, Basque informally stepped down from his interim role (he resigned on principle, saying that he will have no intention of attending an IRC meeting) as President. Shortly afterwards, the CCTA then decided to become it's own group again (instead of being a branch under the IRC) and the IRC became the unofficial governing body of Champ Car.

Then, out of nowhere, Scott Sharp nominated himself as a replacement for Lagrange, and everybody in the council supported the nomination. As soon as Sharp took helm, he made the proposal to amend the unofficial Rochester Agreement right away. Firstly, he made the proposal to change the passing rate from 75% back to 50%. Ironically, it did not pass, as 16 were in favour and 10 were against. Undeterred, he set up a proposal that the committee shall be "independent and not affiliated with any current team, or against an affiliation with a current team." That easily went through the committee, who all thought that was how it should have been in the first place, but they still needed 7 more team representatives to seek full approval. So he told all but four of the representatives that there was no meeting in the week after China, and unsurprisingly, the amendment passed 13-4. (It was later resolved that quorum (90%) should be maintained for a bill to be passed.)

Afterwards, he resigned and called for elections after the Japanese Grand Prix. Sharp later admitted that he wanted to clear up all the remaining loose ends, considered Basque "a lame duck since day 1," and never thought he would do the things Sharp would do, and also said that the CCTA should "dissolve before they try and ruin the sport once more," and shortly afterwards calling them "corrupt buffoons under the hand of Matzarelli, and they do not know how to run anything with a budget."

Elections and steps toward agreement

Eventually, the IRC held elections to determine President. Pole Pawel Ostrowska was elected as President, while Finn Vesa Järvilehto and Brit Dustin Heilbrun were elected Vice-Presidents. Then Ostrowska made steps to make an official Rochester Agreement, signed by the IRC and the CCTA. The CCTA also held elections, electing Alex Matzarelli as President.

Ostrowska then commissioned the new Rochester Agreement so that the IRC would gain full power to govern Champ Car, and to avoid all the power struggles that occured in the previous season from occuring again in the future. The document was quickly signed by Järvilehto and Heilbrun, thinking it was going nowhere. Matzarelli had no intentions to sign, citing that "it would be impregnable to hand over power so quickly to a new organization." Rumours went around claiming Ostrowska said he would not sign until Matzarelli did so. Those rumours were proven false, but the document was missing the two important signatures. Despite this, the issue of not having an agreement with each other was not brought up, and the seasons from Yr43 to Yr46 went off without incident.

When Jonathan Tatton was elected President of the IRC in Yr47, he had made steps to meet with Matzarelli (who had been re-elected unopposed), but those talks went nowhere, although Tatton commented that Matzarelli was "far more agreeable than in previous years," showing early signs of a new deal being signed. However, Matzarelli never signed the agreement when he was replaced as head of the CCTA in Yr48. Tyrrell, like Matzarelli, has also not yet signed the agreement. Although the agreement has not been signed, the teams mutually agree to allow each other to race and earn prize money, as if the agreement was signed.