Yachting: Motor racing Formula in Cup

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The cut-throat world of Formula One motor racing has many parallels to the America's Cup - big dollars and big egos driving futuristic machines.

So it's no surprise that some of the key players inside the two challengers in the Louis Vuitton Cup final are also deep in the world of grand prix racing.

The vice-president of the Prada challenge, Marco Piccinini, is also the vice-president of FIA, the governing body of Formula One.

For 11 years, Piccinini managed the Ferrari team. But he is also a sailor, and has been Prada's representative working with the other challengers and the defender for the past two years.

Piccinini was in Auckland last week to watch the Italians on the water.

One of the structural designers for Prada's Luna Rossa boats, Andrea Avaldi, has worked on the engineering and design of the world's fastest cars.

Next door, AmericaOne's rules adviser Tom Ehman left his business in Europe taking care of Formula One sponsors, to help out Paul Cayard.

Ehman, who has worked on seven Cup campaigns, wants to change yachting's No 1 event, using what he has learned from the pinnacle of motor racing. It is no secret that AmericaOne want an overhaul of the regatta if they win it.

"There are a lot of similarities between the two events - but there are some big differences that the Cup can learn from," he said. "Formula One makes a big profit, but the Cup needs to be modernised to do that.

"The America's Cup is still governed by an antiquated, 150-year-old Deed of Gift that causes so many problems."

In Formula One there was one set of rules, administered by one set of people.

"The big problem with the Cup is that the only prize is the venue."

Ehman began as rules adviser to the defenders in 1980, and led the legal argument for the New York Yacht Club against Australia II's winged keel in 1983.

He helped out Dennis Conner five years ago, finding loopholes in the defender rules, before following Cayard to AmericaOne.

The defenders have their own ties to motor racing. Tony Thomas, the event director for the America's Cup match, ran the Marlboro-McLaren F1 team when driver James Hunt won the world drivers championship.

AC2000 communications manager Murray Taylor owned an international Formula 3 team, whose drivers included Damon Hill, Eddie Irvine and Paul Radisich.