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The Concorde Agreement is a contract between the
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; ) is an international organisation with two primary functions surrounding use of the automobile. Its mobility division advocacy, advocates the interests of motoring organisations, the automot ...
(FIA), the
Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...
teams A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interd ...
and the
Formula One Group The Formula One Group is a group of companies responsible for the Promotion (marketing), promotion of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA Formula One World Championship, and the exercising of the sport's commercial rights. The ...
which dictates the terms by which the teams compete in races, and how the television revenues and prize money is shared. There have been eight versions of the Concorde Agreement, all of which terms were kept strictly secret: the first one was signed in 1981, with newer agreements being signed in 1987, 1992, 1997, 1998, 2009, 2013; the current agreement was signed in 2021. The secrecy was broken by racing journalist Forrest Bond, when the 120-page 1997 Concorde Agreement was published at the end of 2005 by RaceFax. The intent of the agreements is to encourage professionalism and to increase the commercial success of Formula One. Conditions of the agreement generally include the obligation of the teams to participate in every race, hence making the sport more reliable for broadcasters, who were expected to invest heavily to acquire television broadcast rights, and a percentage of the sport's commercial revenue in return for the teams.


First Concorde Agreement (1981-1986)

In 1979, the Commission Sportive Internationale, a subordinate organization of the FIA, which was at that time the rule-making body for Formula One, was dissolved. It was replaced by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), which would serve the same function. FISA clashed repeatedly with the
Formula One Constructors Association The Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) was an organization of the chassis builders (constructors) who design and build the cars that race in the FIA Formula One World Championship. It evolved from the earlier ''Formula 1 Constructors ...
(FOCA), which represented the teams' interests. FOCA's chief executive at the time was
Bernie Ecclestone Bernard Charles Ecclestone (born 28 October 1930) is a British business magnate, motorsport executive and former racing driver. Widely known in journalism as the "F1 Supremo", Ecclestone founded the Formula One Group in 1987, controlling the c ...
and his legal advisor was Max Mosley, while the president of FISA was Jean Marie Balestre. The two organizations' disagreements, which came to be known as the FISA–FOCA war, resulted in several races being cancelled, or declared non-valid (e.g. the 1980 Spanish Grand Prix). Goodyear threatened to withdraw entirely from Formula One, an event which would have been commercially disastrous for the sport, so Ecclestone organized a meeting with all team managers, Balestre, and other FISA representatives at the FIA headquarters in
Place de la Concorde The Place de la Concorde (; ) is a public square in Paris, France. Measuring in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. It was the s ...
,
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. On 19 January 1981, after thirteen straight hours of negotiation, all parties present signed the first Concorde Agreement, named after the square in which the negotiations took place. The contract's terms remain largely confidential, though its known stipulations required the signatory teams to appear and compete in every race, and guaranteed their right to do so in order to assure the sport's newly acquired television public that they would have a race to watch. Also, perhaps most importantly, the agreement granted FOCA the right to televise Formula One races — this right was "leased" to Formula One Promotions and Administration, a company established and owned by
Bernie Ecclestone Bernard Charles Ecclestone (born 28 October 1930) is a British business magnate, motorsport executive and former racing driver. Widely known in journalism as the "F1 Supremo", Ecclestone founded the Formula One Group in 1987, controlling the c ...
. Another important element was the stability in rules, described as protecting the teams from "the whims of the governing body". It expired on 31 December 1987.


Second Concorde Agreement (1987-1991)

The second Concorde Agreement governed the to seasons. When the second Concorde Agreement was agreed in 1987, Ecclestone ceased being a team owner and established Formula One Promotions and Administration (FOPA) to manage TV rights for the teams. FOPA would later become known as Formula One Management (FOM). FOPA received 49% of TV revenues: 1% went to the teams, and 50% to the FIA. FOPA also received all the fees paid by promoters and paid prize money to the teams.


Third Concorde Agreement (1992-1996)

The third Concorde Agreement covered the to seasons. Ecclestone required the approval of Jean-Marie Balestre and the FIA to transfer Formula One television rights to FOCA. He arranged that his business partner Paddy McNally, who was proficient in French, should negotiate the agreement with Balestre, and eventually they came to terms. Balestre was unaware of Ecclestone's aggressive expansion and the value of the television rights. Max Mosley became FIA president shortly after in 1993.


Fourth Concorde Agreement (1997-2002)

In 1995, the FIA decided to transfer Formula One's commercial rights from FOCA to Formula One Administration for a 14-year period. In exchange, Ecclestone would provide an annual payment.
McLaren McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...
, Williams and Tyrrell protested this by rejecting the proposed Concorde Agreement (negotiations for which started as early as 1993). Ken Tyrrell in particular was enraged by the fact that Ecclestone, as the president of FOCA, had negotiated the transfer of the rights from the current organization to his own company. Tyrrell also objected the addendum to the Agreement being secret, arguing that secrecy surrounding the agreement would have only benefitted Ecclestone (by weakening the bargaining power of other parties). The said three teams refused to sign the proposed Concorde Agreement, initially with the support of the remaining teams. However, on 5 September 1996 the new Concorde Agreement was signed by all teams except McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell. The agreement was supposed to be in effect from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2002. In 2005, racing journalist Forrest Bond published the 120-page 1997 Concorde Agreement on RaceFax, hence making it the first (and to this date only) version of the agreement to ever be released to the public.


Fifth Concorde Agreement (1998-2007)

By taking a stand against the actions of Ecclestone, the FIA and the wider commercial aspects of Formula One, McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell lost both influence in the sport and the income which they would have received as signatories. A compromise was reached and on 27 August 1998, a new Concorde Agreement was signed, which accommodated the three teams and which expired on 31 December 2007.


Sixth Concorde Agreement (2008-2012)

On 7 December 2004, at a meeting attended by the bosses of all teams except
Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and be ...
, Ecclestone offered a payout of £260,000,000 over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the fifth Concorde Agreement, which would guarantee the continuation of Formula One in its present form at least until the expiration of that contract. On 19 January 2005, Ferrari announced that it had signed an extension to the previous agreement to expire on 31 December 2012. On 18 July 2005,
Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks created and owned by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With a market share of 43%, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2020, and the third most valuable soft drink brand, behind Coca-Cola and ...
also signed an extension, as
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and Midland did two days later. On 7 December 2005, Williams became the fourth team to sign the extension. On 27 March 2006, the five Grand Prix Manufacturers Association-backed teams - BMW Sauber,
Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...
,
Honda commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in October 1946 by Soichiro Honda, Honda has bee ...
,
McLaren McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...
and
Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...
- submitted their applications for the 2008 season, agreeing to stay in the sport until 2012. On 14 May 2006, the five GPMA-backed teams signed a memorandum of understanding with the commercial rightsholders (CVC/Ecclestone) which formed the basis of the next Concorde Agreement. As such, a full Concorde Agreement was not in place for the season, with the Memorandum, extensions and agreements with the other individual teams acting as a stop-gap solution. On 29 July 2008, the ten currently competing teams created the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) to negotiate the terms of contract. After a dispute between FOTA and the FIA in the first half of , a new Concorde Agreement was signed by Mosley and all of the teams. (
Sauber Sauber Motorsport AG, currently competing in Formula One as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber, and also known simply as Kick Sauber or Sauber, is a Swiss motorsport engineering company. It was founded in 1970 (as PP Sauber AG) by Peter Sauber, who pro ...
, in transition as majority owner of BMW, had announced shortly beforehand its intention of withdrawing from the sport at the end of the season, so waited until a controlling stake of the team was returned to Peter Sauber before signing.) The new agreement provides for a continuation of the terms of the 1998 agreement, and ran until 31 December 2012. At the same meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council, a programme of resource restriction was also agreed upon, as were a revised set of sporting and technical regulations for the season.


Seventh Concorde Agreement (2013-2020)

The 2013 Concorde Agreement took an extended period of negotiations. The sixth agreement ran until 31 December 2012, but no new agreement was in place for the start of the 2013 season. In October 2012 FIA communicated that they were expecting a final settlement between all parties involved within weeks. In reality it took until September 2013. Strictly speaking the 2013 Agreement does not really meet the qualifications for a 'Concorde' Agreement, as it is not a collective agreement among the parties involved. Rather, it is a series of individual bilateral agreements between Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Group and all other parties involved being FIA and the individual Formula One teams. In October 2012, Bernie Ecclestone indicated that he already had agreements with all teams for the 2013-2020 period. However, this list did not yet include Marussia. The Marussia Formula One Team did manage to sign its own bilateral agreement with the Formula One Group in October 2013. The Concorde Implementation Agreement between the FIA and the Formula One Group was signed in July 2013 and was enforced on 27 September 2013. It expired on 31 December 2020. The FIA press announcement about this agreement mentioned that "the parties will move towards the conclusions of a multi-party Concorde agreement", but such a multi-party agreement never materialized.


Eighth Concorde Agreement (2021-2025)

Negotiations over the terms to replace the 2013 agreement began as part of wider discussions over the future of the sport in 2017. A deadline to reach a deal was extended until 31 October 2019. The Agreement was reported to be nearing completion in January 2020, but was delayed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. During the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix weekend, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff declared his dissatisfaction with the terms of the new agreement, which was to introduce a budget cap from the season and change the prize money distribution. Wolff believed that his team would be affected most negatively. In response, the deadline for signing the agreement, previously set for 12 August, was moved back a week. However, after discussions with Chase Carey, Wolff changed stance and declared his willingness to sign the new agreement. The new Concorde Agreement seeks to protect the value of the incumbent teams, by requiring new entrants to pay $200 million up front, shared equally among 10 existing teams, in exchange for having the right of revenue share in its first year of competition. Previously, new entries only received the prize money from their second year of competition. In March 2025,
Cadillac Cadillac Motor Car Division, or simply Cadillac (), is the luxury vehicle division (business), division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Its major markets are the United States, Canada and China; Cadillac models are ...
were approved to join Formula 1 in 2026, although they have to pay $450 million to the existing teams. On 18 August 2020, Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams announced that they had signed the new Concorde Agreement, whilst the following day Formula One announced that the other teams had also signed. The agreement, which is the first to be signed under new owners Liberty Media, covers the to seasons, and came into force on 1 January 2021.


Ninth Concorde Agreement (2026-2030)

On 16 March 2025 it was announced that all 11 teams would sign a new Concorde Agreement that will cover the to seasons, and came into force on 1 January 2026.


References

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General references


''The Economist'': Grand prix, grand prizes


Formula One 1981 establishments in Europe 1981 establishments in Asia 1981 establishments in Africa 1981 establishments in North America 1981 establishments in South America 1981 establishments in Oceania