Peace In Our Time

One of the downsides of only occasionally having time to comment on goings-on is that you want to produce posts which, while timely, are both insightful and not about to get overtaken by external events too quickly. The firestorm around Formula 1 over the past two months has been moving so quickly that I get buried trying to figure out who said what and how they are managing to make the situation even more improbably worse than it was.

Practically anything I would post would quickly get overtaken by what's really happening, and from what's left you can only say I think Max Mosley is carrying on like a destructive idiot so many times before it becomes boringly repetitive.

So with Formula 1 finally seeming to take a collective breath... where are we?

There's no more break-away series (at least for now). I honestly felt this was the worst of all possible outcomes. It seems that the grownups have finally sat down together and followed the money. The sport's history and legitimacy is no more threatened than it is every year by the FIA's bizarre ducking and weaving.

FOTA can't keep their mouth shut. The comment about Mosley being a dictator was probably taken out of context from some low-level PR flack who thought he was speaking off the record. Never the less, it gave Mosley the ammunition he needed to try to blow the whole crisis up again. The fact that Mosley's "I'm not a dictator" explanation basically boils down to "I unilaterally set the rules and accept no argument about my decisions" does little to clear things up.
I guess we can all consider ourselves lucky that F1 appears to collectively gone on holiday this week and there's no one around to help make a bad situation worse.

Max Mosley is out (or maybe he isn't). Mosley appeared to be stepping aside by not standing for re-election this October. Then the whole "dictator" comment came up, with Mosley now threatening to stand for re-election, and making dark statements to the effect that he retains his position, responsibility, and power up until the election in October.

The 2010 rules will be identical to the 2009 rules (except where they are not). So while the budget cap won't happen, the refueling and tire warmer bans will. I've written at length in the past about the budgets in F1. I won't be sad to see the end of refueling. The tire warmers I won't miss either, even if I think that banning them on the grounds of cost-cutting is more than a bit ridiculous.

Overall: I think F1 is where it should have been six months ago. Really, this outcome is the only one which preserves F1 in anything even remotely approximating its historical form, while preserving the historical continuity.

Even though we can thank Max Mosley for much of the way that Formula 1 looks today, the truth is we can blame a lot of its problems on him too. The last year hasn't been kind to him, and I think he is no longer suited to be at the helm of the sport.

But for all my ravings, he's no idiot. I can't believe he seriously thought that he would get away with the changes he wanted to make in the manner he was trying to make them. There has to be another angle, another move, another goal that was concealed while we were all looking at the circus in front of us.

What did he think he was really up to?

Why I don't Trust Max Mosley

For all the alleged peace and love and good hope for the future nonsense that has followed all the existing F1 teams posting their entries for 2010 and beyond, I'm still not hopeful for the future of F1.

Why?

Look at the World Rally Championship.

Specifically, look at the manufacturer championship table. It features:

• Citroen Total World Rally Team
• BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team
• Stobart VK M-sport Ford Rally Team
• Citroen Junior Rally Team
• Munchi's Ford World Rally Team

...and that's all. Citroen, and three Ford outfits.

It's a sad imitation of what it used to be.

Recall that when Mosley arrived on the scene, we had such heavyweights as Subaru, Mitsubishi, and Peugeot. We had second-liners like Skoda and Hyundai. Toyota was about to finish their involvement, but was still there.

The one thing I'll give Mosley credit for -- even if it wasn't directly any of his doing -- for North American viewers, we went through a golden age of coverage. For each of the three days of the event, we got a one hour same-day broadcast showing highlights, usually at a humane hour -- 4PM or 5PM broadcasts were not unheard of. Unfortunately the typical North American race viewer likes his "roundy-rounds" and the WRC programming didn't do very well in the ratings, and Speed discontinued that level of coverage after a year or two.

But now look at where the WRC is. Losing clasic events to a "non-sanctioned" championship and being unable to attract any kind of depth to their events.

This is what Mosley got the WRC.

And now he's "helping" Formula 1.

Max Mosley: Idiot, or genius?

Idiot.

OK, I should probably qualify that somewhat.

One of Mosley's saws that he keeps going back to is that despite the teams and manufacturers enthusiasm for Formula one, not a single one has signed a legally binding contract to remain in the sport for any given period of time.

Now seriously: why would an organization commit to participating in a sport that requires the outlay of millions (either tens or hundreds, doesn't matter at this point), if the rules for participating in that sport are going to get changed at the drop of a hat? If someone had given Mosley a five-year commitment two years ago, they'd be feeling more than a little taken at this point. Radical rules changes for 2009, and even more radical changes for 2010.

This whole showdown with the teams has a predictable next-stage to it. The major teams won't file entry papers. Some half- (or, lets be generous, three-quarters-) baked teams will step in to replace them. Mosley is threatening to stand for re-election this year; this potential ruination of the Formula 1 championship is going to be more than adequate grounds for the delegates to dismiss him. Mosley is (despite my insistence at the top of this post) no idiot, he has to see that what is going to happen is that he is going to have to blink and step aside. Someone else will sweep in and broker a compromise that will let the teams continue to participate while maintaining the FIA's authority; I'm going to predict that the replacement teams who try to participate under the 'cap' rules are going to be tossed aside in favor of the establishment's interests. I'll also predict at least one major team (my money is on Toyota) will use the chaos as an excuse to withdraw.

Mosley and Ecclestone always seem to be three moves ahead of anybody else when it comes to these political games. So you have to know that they have the next two moves figured out.

But what is the next move? What is Mosley's ultimate goal here? Where is the endgame? I don't see it.