Bernie's going for Gold

Just back from a press conference at the Landmark Hotel, London, where Bernie Ecclestone said more about the proposed "medals" scheme in F1 and announced that LG the consumer electronics group, will sponsor F1 next year. You as viewers will be very aware of this deal as you watch, because the timing graphics, which appear on screen every 20 seconds of so will be LG branded. I think they will also sponsor the rev counter graphic you see on screen. They will develop F1 branded telies and other products off the back of the deal.

The deal was put together by Just Marketing, who also pulled in Johnnie Walker, Hilton Hotels and Lenovo to F1. Interestingly the event was fronted by BBC's new F1 anchor Jake Humphreys, with whom I had an enjoyable chat. He's a decent bloke, from the looks of things and he's followed the sport for a while, so he's not without knowledge. And he must be a sharp operator as he got himself a nice little earner today before he's even hosted an F1 show!

LG's announcement is a good deal for F1 as it sends out a strong message to those existing sponsors, of whom there are a few, who might be thinking of pulling out in these harsh economic times, that F1 is still worth the investment. It also sends out a signal to the teams to pull their fingers out and find deals like this of their own.

Anyway, Bernie also spoke about his idea of medals instead of points deciding the championship. Here's what he said, “It’s going to happen. All the teams are happy, the FIA are happy. The reason behind it is overtaking. The drivers don’t need to overtake now, it’s too big a risk for an extra couple of points, but if they need to get gold medals to win the championship then they are going to overtake, I guarantee you. This year on a number of occasions (Lewis Hamilton) didn’t bother to overtake Massa. If he had driven for me and he’d tried and made a mistake I would have complained. It’s not on that someone can win the championship without winning the race. It will come in next year, I’m hoping it will be approved in the next FIA meeting (Dec 12th)"

Bernie confirmed that even if Driver A wins 5 races and finishes second in the rest while Driver B wins six races and crashes out of all the others, Driver B will be world champion.

It's a major departure for F1 and I think it will be debated quite hard in the FIA world council before it gets passed. There is no doubt that it would create more of those landmark overtakes of the kind Nigel Mansell used to do, or last lap specials, like Kimi did on Fisi in Japan three years ago. But is it the right thing for F1? What do you think?

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