FISA–FOCA war
The key figures involved were Jean-Marie Balestre, the FISA president at the time, Bernie Ecclestone, who led FOCA and owned the Brabham Formula One team, and Max Mosley, who later became the president of the FIA but then served as a legal advisor to both Ecclestone's Brabham team and FOCA in general.
[3] The FOCA teams staged a Formula One race under the WFMS banner in South Africa in February 1981, won by Carlos Reutemann in a Williams-Ford.
However, the lack of major factory team attendance, the resulting poor fan support and limited media coverage meant that the viability of the rival series was compromised immediately.
[4] A grudging settlement was reached thereafter which allowed the FOCA teams to return to the "FISA" world championship in time for the first race in March.
After lengthy debates and negotiation between the GPDA, FISA and FOCA the dispute was settled in favour of the drivers, and the clause was dropped.
In theory, all the FOCA-aligned teams were supposed to boycott the Grand Prix as a sign of solidarity and complaint at the handling of the regulations and financial compensation.
Initially the turbocharged cars had been heavy, unreliable, and difficult to drive, meaning the Ford-Cosworth DFVs used by the majority of the Formula One teams (with Ferrari's Flat 12 engine the notable exception) were still dominant.
By this time, Ferrari and later Alfa Romeo (1983) joined Renault in the turbo camp, while even Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team began using turbocharged BMW engines in 1982.
In reality, the water in the tanks wasn't used for cooling the brakes at all, but was instead sprayed out of the car in the early laps of the race.
Ironically, the rest of the FOCA teams' cars in the Brazilian Grand Prix (some of which had scored points) were not disqualified despite the fact they ran the same water-cooled brakes system.
[citation needed] Similarly, after the limiting of ground effect technology in Formula One at the end of 1980 the Brabham team devised a system to circumvent the minimum ride height regulation of 6 centimetres.
The FISA had implemented this rule in order to make it relatively easy to eliminate ground effect skirts and underwings, both of which required that the bodywork of the car be very close to the racing surface at all times.
The Brabham team at the time was headed by Ecclestone, with legal representation by Max Mosley,[citation needed] and its chief mechanic was Charlie Whiting – all of whom became FIA Senior staffers.
The team's designer Gordon Murray produced a hydropneumatic suspension system for the Brabham BT49C, in which compressed air acted as the spring.
While the Concorde Agreement has been both extended and substantially modified since then, the ten teams contesting the Formula One World Championship in 2019 are still covered under its provisions.
The fact that promoters could guarantee that "all 26" cars (as was the custom) would appear at every race led to increased sponsorships and commercial opportunities.
This was resolved before the Monaco Grand Prix in 1985, when Toleman bought the Pirelli contract from the recently closed Spirit team, after signing a long-term sponsorship with Luciano Benetton.
The commercial aspects of Formula One have grown immensely since their involvement in the late 1980s, although the neutrality of the governing bodies and their judgements is still debated by the press and followers of the sport.
