The next step will be to try to float the business on a stock exchange to allow CVC to take yet more money out of the sport, while leaving control in the hands of the current management. This has also been tried before but proved impossible because of questions about the way that the commercial side of the sport operates. CVC may well have asked Goldman Sachs to sell its stake in the business but there are hurdles that must be cleared. The primary problem is that of Bernie Ecclestone. He runs the business and there are questions as to how effective any successor would be in the same role. At the same time there is no obvious succession plan and with Ecclestone turning 82 this year, the sport really needs a solid concept for a post-Ecclestone era in order to get investors excited. On top of this there are the questions that still hang in the air over the Gribkowsky trial and the reported tax investigations. These are the sort of things that make big financial institutions uncomfortable. Flotation may not be possible and in that case it will be back to the devices used in the past, with private sale followed by bond issues. These will make the sport a cash cow for financiers once again and while Ferrari and Red Bull may be willing to scramble for what they can get now, the other teams will not be so keen. F1 needs a full grid and while some of the current teams will likely be lured over to Ecclestone’s side, others will resist. This is probably why there have also been rumours that in the future teams will be allowed to run single cars and can buy chassis from the big teams for the first few years of their existence. This would, in theory at least, open the way to create enough small fry to fill the tarmac behind the big teams. Some teams are completely dependent on the sport although others that have learned from past failures are now businesses that could survive without F1 if necessary. They could, in theory at least, sit out a few years until they are offered a better deal from F1.

The goal of CVC Capital Partners and Bernie Ecclestone is to raise as much cash as they can, while retaining as much control as possible. In the case of CVC the question of image is important because while they have gained a lot of money from the sport, it has not done their image much good, particularly when boss Donald MacKenzie stood up in court in Germany and said that he had no idea what was going on during the sale process. Investors are not impressed by such things. Ecclestone is an unlikely boss for a quoted company as transparency has not always been his idea of how business should be done and while the stock exchange in Singapore might allow him a little more flexibility than London or New York, in terms of disclosure, the value would be less. At the moment there is a move to try to make F1 look as though it is worth $10 billion, but this seems like a lot of drum-banging.

The value of the company depends not only on a Concorde Agreement involving all the major parties, but also a solution to the question of succession. CVC tried to bring in a possible Ecclestone successor in David Campbell at Allsport Management, but he has gone already. The trouble here is that the sport wants an insider in charge, while the markets want someone with a proven track record in another business. Ecclestone fits the bill at the moment, but he cannot go on forever.