A spokesman for the Commission added: “We have received a complaint and will assess it”.
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“Sahara Force India is one of two teams to have registered a complaint with the European Union questioning the governance of Formula 1 and showing that the system of dividing revenues and determining how Formula 1 rules are set is both unfair and unlawful”.
The teams’ biggest complaint is the historic prize money payments given to the five biggest teams, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren and Williams.
The Sauber team said the formal complaint touched on Formula One’s “rule making powers and privileges, which are harming the sport”.
The sport’s ownership has also been in the spotlight, with media speculation that RSE Ventures, the investment vehicle of Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, and Qatar are lining up a potential $7 billion-$8 billion takeover deal.
The distribution of monetary prizes in Formula 1 is not made public, but according to the report filed, “Ferrari were paid more than £102m past year and that Sauber received a reported £30m”.
That November letter to Ecclestone had spoken of “a questionable cartel” controlling “both the governance of Formula One and, apparently, the distribution of…funds”.
UK-based Force India have long had issues with the way the F1 Strategy Group is strcutrured, as it believes it is heavily skewed in favour of the older, larger teams, whose recommendations then supersede any suggestions or input comparatively smaller teams may have.
A briefing note to the European Union complaint, published in the Times newspaper on Tuesday, spoke of “unfair” side payments which put the independent teams “at a perpetual sporting and economic disadvantage”.
That could have dramatic implications for its owners as well as all teams.
The complaint comes at a hard time for F1 already, with Red Bull and Toro Rosso threatening to exit, while the future of Lotus will be determined by Renault, which is now still in discussions with Bernie Ecclestone over the “legacy” status it wants in order to stay in the sport.
“They (the teams) all signed contracts”.
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“That’s why I’ve raised this issue a number of times in Brussels, to see if there is a competition case to answer here”.
