Euro MPs pave way for investigation into F1 anti-competitive practices

Members of the European Parliament have supported a motion to open an investigation into “anti-competitive practices” in Formula 1.

Labour MEP Anneliese Dodds called for an investigation in an amendment to the parliament’s annual competition report, which passed by 467 votes to 156, with 86 abstentions. The European Commission may now launch an inquiry.

Dodds claims smaller teams are “unfairly punished” because of the way F1 is run, while recently questioning the sport’s takeover by Liberty Media and the resulting UK tax arrangements.

Dodds cited the collapse of Manor as an example of how small F1 teams struggle while the big teams get richer, “Smaller teams are unfairly punished by an uncompetitive allocation of prize money that will always give the biggest teams more money, even if they finish last in every race.”

In 2015 Force India and Sauber, called on the EU’s Competition Commission to investigate the unfairness over the way F1 revenues were divided and how rules were decided without consultation with smaller teams.

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