Reddit reviews Beyond the Limit

Sid Wakins' Beyond The Limit is the only F1 book you need.

FIA stands for Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Its basically an international association of automobile clubs, this includes organisations that organise and hold motorsport events.

Back in the 90s the EU ruled that the FIA could not hold the governing and commercial rights, so they sold the commercial rights to FOM. This is the set up that remains to this day. the FIA are responsible for holding the rule book and governance of those rules. FOM deal with the commercial side - they sell coverage to TV companies, give journalists access to the paddock etc. FOM also sign deals with promoters who wish to hold grand prix. FOM also have agreements with every team in F1 (called the Concorde agreement). The Concorde agreement covers the teams obligations (must compete in every race, must run 2 cars and so on) and the money that they receive from FOM for participating.

The Concorde agreement is secret - there is an awful lot of speculation about who gets what money, but few people actually know and are bound to secrecy. We do know that some teams receive extra money "just because". We also know the payment structure is based on the previous year's WCC standings and it is somewhat unbalanced - so if you win the WCC you get a whole bunch more money than the 10th placed team.

Bernie ? There has been much written about him. In short he's a maverick. Many years ago he owned the Brabham team, back then the commercial side of F1 didn't really exist - cars had sponsor stickers all over them but it wasn't really exploited. More than that, the whole commercial side was disorganised - teams would do deals to run in races directly with promoters. When there were flyaway races teams would book their shipping (of cars/equipment) individually. Bernie saw an opportunity, he started representing the teams - initially getting a bulk deal on transport to lower costs, then he began to represent the teams to negotiate deals. For the most part the teams were happy with this, at least initially - they were naive and far more interested in putting next year's car together than dealing with business people. When TV money started coming along they understood ! Which led to Ken Tyrrell rather angrily declaring that Bernie had stolen F1 from the teams. FOCA (the company that Bernie set up to represent the teams) became FOM. Bernie then eventually sells FOM to a number of investors - most notably CVC Capital Partners.

It should be noted that over the years Bernie has made the sport what it is today (good and bad). The commercialisation has bought huge amounts of money to the sort - F1 drivers are household names all over the world. Bernie made the sport more professional - previously teams would run in F1 for the odd race or two when they could afford it using old cars, sometimes with only one car.
Probably the biggest thing that Bernie did was improve safety and medical care. He employed Sid Watkins as the official F1 doctor. When promoters refused to let Sid inspect medical facilities Bernie threatened to cancel races if Sid wasn't allowed to inspect facilities or found things were not up to the required standard.
Sid was a wonderful chap and is very much missed, his book is worth a read - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Limit-Triumph-Tragedy-Formula/dp/0330351397/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2KS044VRWQHPN89Z40TY and the follow up https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Limit-Sid-Watkins/dp/0330481967

Anyway, back to the money - CVC are capitalists. They buy something and later sell it to make money. In the case of FOM I believe the profit generated paid back about 50% of their purchase price of the years - then of course they sold it to Liberty Media. They've done pretty well out of it.
CVC's strategy was to leave Bernie in place - he knows everyone, he knows the business and his eye for a deal was (is?) pretty impressive. Basically as an employee of CVC his job was to make them as much money as possible - and thats what he did. This has attracted a lot of negative press for Bernie over the years. To some extent he & CVC were "chasing the money" -hence races in India, Korea and many other far flung destinations. You have to remember Bernie is 86 and basically, doesn't understand the internet, social media and all that stuff - this has also caused negative press.

When LM bought FOM and quietly moved Bernie aside many rejoiced because they saw Bernie as all F1's problem personified. Ultimately LM have purchased F1 to make money, so in some respects the rejoicing was maybe a little premature. Having said that, LM clearly have their own ideas on how to monetise F1 - its still early days, lets see what happens.

Nascar history and a good read: http://www.amazon.com/Driving-Devil-Southern-Moonshine-Detroit-ebook/dp/B001RLTFMU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1418389525&sr=8-4&keywords=nascar+books

For F1, the Sid Watkins books are great:
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Limit-Triumph-Tragedy-Formula/dp/0330351397/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418389580&sr=1-1&keywords=sid+watkins
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Limit-Sid-Watkins/dp/0330481967/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XKAMY0KZ2Z47WF8JWC7