The intent of the agreements is to encourage professionalism and increase the commercial success of Formula One. Conditions generally include the obligation of the teams to participate in every race — making the sport more reliable for broadcasters expected to invest heavily in television rights — and a share of the sport's commercial revenue in return.
In 1979 the Commission Sportive Internationale, a subordinate organisation of the FIA and the then rule-making body for Formula One, was dissolved and replaced by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA). FISA clashed repeatedly with the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), which represented the teams' interests. FOCA's chief executive was Bernie Ecclestone and his legal adviser was Max Mosley; the president of FISA was Jean Marie Balestre.
The disputes — known as the FISA–FOCA war — resulted in several races being cancelled or declared non-valid, including the 1980 Spanish Grand Prix. Goodyear threatened to withdraw entirely from Formula One, which would have been commercially disastrous. Ecclestone organised a meeting with all team managers, Balestre, and other FISA representatives at the FIA headquarters in Place de la Concorde, Paris. On 19 January 1981, after thirteen straight hours of negotiation, all parties signed the first Concorde Agreement, named after the hotel in which the negotiations took place.
The contract's known stipulations required signatory teams to appear and compete in every race, and guaranteed their right to do so. The agreement also granted FOCA the right to televise Formula One races — a right "leased" to Formula One Promotions and Administration, a company established and owned by Ecclestone. Another key element was stability in rules, described as protecting the teams from "the whims of the governing body." The agreement expired on 31 December 1987.
The second agreement governed the 1987 to 1991 seasons. When it 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 received 49% of TV revenues; 1% went to the teams and 50% to the FIA. FOPA also received all fees paid by promoters and paid prize money to the teams. FOPA would later become known as Formula One Management (FOM).
The third agreement covered the 1992 to 1996 seasons. Ecclestone required the approval of Balestre and the FIA to transfer Formula One television rights to FOCA. He arranged for his business partner Paddy McNally, who was proficient in French, to negotiate the agreement with Balestre; Balestre was unaware of Ecclestone's aggressive expansion and the value of the television rights. Max Mosley became FIA president shortly after in 1993.
In 1995, the FIA decided to transfer Formula One's commercial rights from FOCA to Formula One Administration for a 14-year period, with Ecclestone providing an annual payment in exchange. McLaren, Williams, and Tyrrell protested by rejecting the proposed Concorde Agreement. Ken Tyrrell in particular was enraged that Ecclestone, as FOCA president, had negotiated the transfer of rights from the organisation to his own company; Tyrrell also objected to the secrecy surrounding the agreement's addendum, arguing it only benefitted Ecclestone by weakening the bargaining power of other parties.
The three dissenting teams initially had the support of the remaining teams, but on 5 September 1996 the new Concorde Agreement was signed by all teams except McLaren, Williams, and Tyrrell. By taking a stand, those three teams lost both influence in the sport and the income they would have received as signatories. The agreement was intended to run from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2002. In 2005 racing journalist Forrest Bond published the 120-page 1997 Concorde Agreement on RaceFax — the first and, to that date, only version to be released to the public.
A compromise was reached and on 27 August 1998 a new Concorde Agreement was signed which accommodated the three dissenting teams. It expired on 31 December 2007.
On 7 December 2004, at a meeting attended by the bosses of all teams except Ferrari, Ecclestone offered a payout of £260,000,000 over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the fifth Concorde Agreement. On 19 January 2005, Ferrari announced it had signed an extension to expire on 31 December 2012. On 18 July 2005, Red Bull also signed; Jordan and Midland followed two days later. On 7 December 2005, Williams became the fourth team to sign.
On 27 March 2006, the five Grand Prix Manufacturers Association-backed teams — BMW Sauber, Renault, Honda, McLaren, and Toyota — submitted their applications for the 2008 season, agreeing to stay in the sport until 2012. On 14 May 2006, those five teams signed a memorandum of understanding with the commercial rightsholders (CVC/Ecclestone) forming the basis of the next Concorde Agreement. As a full Concorde Agreement was not in place for the 2008 season, the memorandum, extensions, and individual team agreements served as a stop-gap.
On 29 July 2008, the ten 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 2009, a new Concorde Agreement was signed by Mosley and all teams. (Sauber, in transition following BMW's majority ownership, waited until a controlling stake had returned to Peter Sauber before signing.) The new agreement continued the terms of the 1998 agreement and ran until 31 December 2012.
The 2013 Concorde Agreement took an extended period of negotiation. The sixth agreement ran until 31 December 2012 but no new agreement was in place at the start of the 2013 season; in October 2012 the FIA indicated a final settlement was expected within weeks, but in reality it took until September 2013.
Strictly speaking the 2013 Agreement does not meet the usual definition of a "Concorde" Agreement, as it is not a collective agreement among all parties. Instead it is a series of individual bilateral agreements between Ecclestone's Formula One Group and the FIA and each individual team. In October 2012, Ecclestone indicated he already had agreements with all teams for 2013–2020, though Marussia was not yet included; the Marussia Formula One Team signed its own bilateral agreement in October 2013. The Concorde Implementation Agreement between the FIA and the Formula One Group was signed in July 2013 and enforced from 27 September 2013. It expired on 31 December 2020. The FIA press announcement noted that "the parties will move towards the conclusions of a multi-party Concorde agreement," but such an agreement never materialised.
Negotiations over the replacement for the 2013 agreement began in 2017 as part of wider discussions about the sport's future. A deadline was extended until 31 October 2019. The agreement was reported to be nearing completion in January 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix weekend, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff declared dissatisfaction with the terms of the new agreement, which introduced a budget cap from 2021 and changed prize money distribution; he believed his team would be most negatively affected. The signing deadline, previously 12 August, was moved back a week. After discussions with Chase Carey, Wolff changed stance and declared his willingness to sign.
The new agreement requires new entrants to pay $200 million up front, shared equally among the 10 existing teams, in exchange for receiving a revenue share in their first year of competition; previously, new entries only received prize money from their second year. In March 2025, Cadillac were approved to join Formula One in 2026, though they must pay $450 million to the existing teams.
On 18 August 2020, Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams announced they had signed the new Concorde Agreement; Formula One announced the following day that the other teams had also signed. The agreement — the first signed under new owners Liberty Media — covers the 2021 to 2025 seasons and came into force on 1 January 2021.
On 16 March 2025 it was announced that all 11 teams had signed the 2026 Concorde Commercial Agreement, covering the 2026 to 2030 seasons, which came into force on 1 January 2026. On 12 December 2025, Formula One and the FIA announced that both parties and all 11 teams had also signed the 2026 Concorde Governance Agreement.
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