There has been news circulating about a possible merger between the World Rally Championship and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Manufacturer numbers are down in the WRC – and have been for some time – while IRC entries are booming.

There are more than 120 cars signed up for the IRC Barum Czech Rally on August 26-28, while more than 200,000 people are expected to watch the asphalt action. Not only that, but the IRC has great TV coverage courtesy of Eurosport, which owns the series. If you were Jarmo Mahonen, the WRC Commission president, then a merger would make sense. It obviously does, because he’s the man pushing for it.

However, before I get too cynical about the reasons why, it is worth taking a step back. As some of you may have seen, I’ve been writing a series of articles in the magazine called ‘Motor Racing’s Money Tree’. We’ve broken down all the single-seater championships and then placed them on a tree with Formula 1 in the canopy and Formula Ford down by the roots. We’ve tried to explain how they all fit in together and it seems to have made sense to at least a few people.

The idea was then put forward of doing a similar thing for rallying. But there’s no way you could neatly place the ‘rallying ladder’ on a tree. It would be ‘Motor Racing’s Money Bush’. It is chaos. And that is what Mahonen (below) is keen on trying to address. He wants a system whereby talented youngsters can race in the IRC and then move up easily to the WRC.

It sounds good, but something the IRC is well known for is its atmosphere and, as current Peugeot driver Guy Wilks (below) put it, “character”. Would this be lost if it was taken under the arm of the WRC?

“In the WRC, because of the manufacturer money, there are only so many drivers who are capable of winning a stage, let alone a rally,” Wilks tells me while doing PR for ‘The Go-Kart Rally’. “In the IRC, if you look at the stage winners this year, you have a long list of names.” You do. So far this season, after six rallies, there have been 13 different stage winners. In the WRC, after eight rallies, there have been eight different stage winners.

“I’m really enjoying the IRC because it’s all about the challenge for the driver,” adds Wilks. “The championship has got character and we’ve got a fantastic array of rallies, from the beautiful scenery and countryside in Scotland to the mountain stages in Corsica. There’s also Monte Carlo and even the plains in the Czech Republic.”

On the Monte Carlo Rally the IRC has a stage in the dark up the Col de Turini. It’s a feast for the senses and, for me, it’s what the WRC is lacking – real drama.

“The spectators can get really close to the drivers and the cars; they’re not penned in like in the WRC. Even in the service area for that matter. It’s got a family feel, everybody mixes in and gets involved and that’s reflected in the number of spectators. In Ypres and Barum the service areas are absolutely jam-packed.”

Former FIA president Max Mosley didn’t do a huge amount for the WRC, but now that Jean Todt is in office things may well change. He’s got a history in the series, having been a World Championship navigator from 1973-81, and the fact that he has already sorted a World Endurance Championship for next year can only bode well.

Longer and more challenging stages, fewer remote service areas, tests run at night… Let’s make a WRC round a proper event. Yes, try and create a legitimate ladder system for the sport, but let’s not lose any of the atmosphere that goes with the IRC. The last thing we need is a rallying equivalent of the rather unexciting GP3 championship.

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It’s still a place where you need to have your wits about you, but time was when a Formula 1 pitlane was a very dangerous place to be. After the utterly disastrous San Marino Grand Prix weekend in 1994 a whole raft of changes, to both technical and sporting regulations, was introduced, and one of these had nothing to do with the fatal accidents to Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.

Late in the race at Imola Michele Alboreto’s Minardi (below) shed a wheel as it accelerated out of pitlane, and several mechanics were injured. When Max Mosley announced the forthcoming changes, in Monaco two weeks later, one of them was that henceforth there should be a speed limit in the pitlane.

It may be argued that this detracted from the drama of pitstops, and certainly it was an almighty experience to be close at hand for a ‘full speed’ stop, but if I have sometimes railed against changes made in the interests of safety – like ‘safety car’ rolling starts whenever the day is wet, for example – I never had any problems in accepting a pitlane speed limit. Yes, it’s true that at first it seemed almost comical to watch a car crawl towards its pit, there to be set upon by a horde of mechanics working like dervishes, only for it then to crawl away again. The effect was similar to playing with fast-forward on a remote, but we soon got used to it, and eventually the practice was embraced by every major racing series on earth.

Watch a pre-94 pitstop now, and it’s hard to take in that it could ever have been like that: harder still to believe that it didn’t cost a lot of lives over time.

Back in 1981 I was in the pits during a morning practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, and witnessed something that I wish I had not. The old pitlane at Zolder was ludicrously narrow, and as I watched Carlos Reutemann (below) coming towards me, slowly – this was only practice remember – making his way out, so I also saw someone fall backwards from the pitwall, right into the path of the Williams.

There was not a thing Reutemann could do, and the sight of his car literally bouncing into the air has not surprisingly stayed with me. There was nothing to be done. The young Osella mechanic, who had stepped backwards into nowhere, died immediately.

Only a few days later I was at Indianapolis, walking down the pitlane at the end of Carburation Day, the traditional final practice session before the 500. Believing everyone to be back in the pits, I was strolling along – my back to the entry to pitlane – when something literally brushed my leg, nicking my trousers and leaving the minutest of nicks in my right calf. It was the blue Lightning-Cosworth of Gary Bettenhausen (below), the last man to come off the track, and as he turned into pitlane he cut the engine, and was thus still travelling in complete silence – and still at huge speed.

Gary Bettenhausen (McLaren-Offenhauser) in the 1974 USAC Indycar Series

It was entirely my own fault – I simply wasn’t paying enough attention – but even now, 30 years on, I can still recall the fear of that instant. Nothing else in my life has come close to it.

Now, in the interests of ‘being seen to be green’, the proposal from the FIA is that from 2014, when the new more environmentally-friendly V6 turbo engines arrive, cars should run on ‘electric power’ only when running the pits.

The idea apparently came originally from Max Mosley, who owned a Toyota Prius and was much into this sort of thing – indeed it was he who, looking to the F1 of the future, seriously asked me if I thought ‘the noise’ was important to race fans.

I said yes, I did – emphatically – think so, indeed suggested that to F1 aficionados the sound of a car was probably as important as the sight of it. Max seemed surprised by my response – for him, he said, the noise rather got in the way of the commentary. Clearly, there was to be no meeting of minds on this.

At the time, of course, we were talking about cars out on the track racing, and it may well be – some time, I hope, after I have ceased to care – that Grand Prix cars will be all-electric, still proceeding with great speed but in total silence.

In the shorter term comes this proposal that they be all-electric in the pitlane, and – short of speed bumps – I cannot conceive of anything more asinine. For a sport these days literally obsessed with safety, could there be a more potentially hazardous introduction?

As is so often the way with blinkered change, it stems in essence from political correctness, from fear of being judged, of being thought out of step. If cars negotiate their way through pitlane in total silence, the mandatory speed limit will make little difference – Reutemann was doing maybe 10mph when he hit the Italian lad.

Bernie Ecclestone, not surprisingly, is one who passionately believes that the sound of motor racing is vital to its survival, and nowhere more so than in the pits. Bernie has rightly condemned this FIA plan for 2014, and I hope they have the common sense to take note. It’s an absurdity, and a criminally dangerous one at that.

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Adrian Newey isn’t a fan of KERS, but why he would be? Yes, it provides an 80-horsepower boost for a few seconds a lap, but a genius like Adrian has subtler ways of going faster than employing a ‘push to pass’ button, and that’s what it amounts to. At a time when FIA president Max Mosley was insisting that Formula 1 needed drastically to cut its costs, so the governing body introduced KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), the argument being that it was ‘green’ in concept and the beginning of a path down which F1 must proceed if it were to have any chance of long-term survival. And if it cost a massive amount of money to develop, well, too bad, start serving up cheaper Parmesan in the motorhomes…

For all its green credentials, KERS would never appeal to a man like Newey. For one thing, it is a component on an F1 car over which he has no control; for another, it necessarily screws up the purity of his designs. With or without KERS, the minimum weight limit of an F1 car is 640 kilos, so if you don’t run KERS – as with Red Bull at Melbourne – you run an equivalent weight of ballast, and that’s fine, because you can position ballast and use it to your car’s best advantage. Sebastian Vettel utterly dominated the Australian Grand Prix in a car of perfect balance – without KERS.

Melbourne, though, was a bit of a special case, for it lacks a straight of any consequence. Come Sepang, with two extremely long straights, and KERS simply had to come into the reckoning – even for Red Bull. Even though his team, concerned about a potential problem, requested that he not use it for a portion of the race, Vettel still won again. But Webber, whose system was inoperative from the start, was decidedly hampered. In the circumstances Mark’s fourth place was a great achievement, but on the long straights his lack of KERS invariably kept him from getting within the requisite one second of the car in front – which meant, of course, that he was unable to deploy his ‘moveable rear wing’, otherwise known as DRS (Drag Reduction System).

All initials and systems, contemporary F1, isn’t it? Fernando Alonso had the opposite problem: his KERS was working, but his DRS wasn’t…

Over time all manner of things have been considered to improve the quality of the racing – or, at least, to permit changes in the order. That’s why refuelling was originally brought back, for example, and why, at different times, there has been talk of weight penalties for successful cars (as in the Trophee Andros ice racing series), and more recently proposals of rallycross-style ‘short cuts’ on the circuits – and even sprinkler systems to create ‘rain’.

All these ideas have been a tacit acknowledgement of F1’s ‘lack of overtaking’ problem, and I confess that whenever anything like this comes up I find myself thinking, ‘What would Ayrton or Gilles have made of this?’ Or, come to that, Jenks? And it doesn’t take me long to arrive at an answer.

I really wasn’t surprised that Niki Lauda contemptuously dismissed the ‘moveable rear wing’: “Completely crazy – now the FIA decides where you can overtake…”

Some suggest that these systems are no different from adjustable boost in the turbo era, whereby you could temporarily award yourself some extra horsepower (at the same time knowing that it was eating into your restricted fuel allowance for the race). But that argument is hardly valid – if a following driver whopped up his boost to pass you, there was nothing to stop you doing the same to defend your position.

All cars were operating to the same rules at all times in the race, that’s my point, and surely that is fundamental to anything calling itself ‘Grand Prix racing’. DRS strikes me as akin to investing in the best running shoes for all competitors – and then putting stones in some of them.

By common consent, wet races are invariably far more exciting – hence the ‘sprinkler’ idea – but why is that the case? It’s not rocket science; it’s because there is less grip. No, we can’t un-invent downforce, but surely we can come up with a set of aerodynamic rules that permit cars closely to follow each other through fast corners, perhaps generating downforce from shaped underbody, rather than relying absolutely on external appendage.

“Ah, here’s the purist – the keeper of the flame…” Max would murmur when I arrived at one of his functions, and I couldn’t – and can’t – take issue. I’ve loved Grand Prix racing all my life, and I’ve never cared to see artifices introduced to turn the sport into ‘The Show’, particularly systems – like KERS and DRS – which involve no element of driving skill. Of course I want to see better racing as much as anyone – but it has to be real. Remember the Hanford Wing, which undoubtedly increased the amount of overtaking in CART events on superspeedways, but rendered the races farcical? ‘I pass you here each lap, and you pass me there…’

F1 has surely become way too convoluted and complicated. Some years ago I asked Patrick Head what he would do to improve F1. “Oh, ban wings,” he said immediately, somewhat to my surprise. Then he laughed. “But that would never happen – think of all that lost advertising space…”

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It’s time for Monza. What a delicious prospect. Passion, pasta, Peroni and the Prancing Horse. Then there’s the traffic, the tifosi and the double-booking of grandstand seats…

The Italian Grand Prix has been held every year since 1950 and, along with the British race, is the only round to have been on the calendar for so many consecutive years. One of the truly great things about this race is that it is held at the Autodromo di Monza – a true Grand Prix circuit situated in parkland just outside Milan.

I had my first experience of this place back in 1969. And what a race it was. We had seats in the huge grandstand opposite the pits – when I say seats, in those days you perched on bare concrete steps that reached skyward from the edge of that everlasting straight from Parabolica to Curva Grande. No silly chicanes, just a highly dangerous, slipstreaming blast from corner to corner. That year the Italians had double-booked our seats, so we were jammed into a long row of very excitable Ferrari fans. They stood and cheered every time the red cars went by. Fantastic. The man selling bags of nuts and drinks was unable to make his way up the steps.

This was one of the closest races in the history of the sport. Less than a second covered the first four cars as they came out of Parabolica in formation before ducking and weaving over the line. But there wasn’t much for the tifosi to cheer. Amon and Rodréguez struggled with an uncompetitive car, the Mexican finally finishing sixth, two laps down, while Jackie Stewart won the slipstreaming contest by mere feet from Rindt, Beltoise and McLaren. That secured his first World Championship and the Constructors’ title for Matra. By the end of this thrilling encounter we had a little more room, many of the locals having long ago walked away.

Two years later we were back, having again driven from Sussex, over the Alps and down to Lake Como – a good place to stay to make the most of an Italian GP weekend. Milan is easier, but not in Sunday traffic. Again we were treated to a classic Monza experience. This time Peter Gethin was the last man to duck out of the slipstream and cross the line in the lead, less than a second ahead of Peterson, Cevert, Hailwood and Ganley. It could have been any one of them, but it was Gethin in the BRM, and he still talks about it. The red cars, now raced by Ickx and Regazzoni, retired. The traffic started early.

Of course we no longer have four cars abreast, and nor do we have the same daunting circuit. But Monza is Monza, and you have to go there at least once in your life. Like Silverstone, Spa, Monte Carlo and Interlagos, it’s a pilgrimage for which you must put aside the pennies and go.

It’s not just Monza, it’s Ferrari, it’s the passion, it’s the blinding speed and noise, the flashes of colour in the trees through the Lesmos, the whole wonder of Italy. Ah, Forza Ferrari.

No, I am not biased – I simply believe that Ferrari and Italy are vital ingredients of Grand Prix racing. I don’t like team orders, and I very much hope that the stupid rule (Article 39.1) introduced by Max Mosley to outlaw the practice will be banished, and that Ferrari will not be singled out.

Meanwhile, Monza goes ahead as it always must. OK, the place has been emasculated in the interests of safety, but this is still one of the great sporting arenas. The atmosphere remains intact – the people have seen to that.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It’s a fact that many of us left Bahrain in a downbeat frame of mind, for this 2010 Grand Prix season had been anticipated – for a variety of sound reasons – with a great deal of relish. Yet the opening race of the season had been one of the most boring in recent memory, like a re-run of qualifying in slow motion.

Many immediately suggested it had been a mistake to get rid of refuelling and demanded immediate changes, some of which had merit, some not. Bernie Ecclestone counselled against knee-jerk reactions, and anyone with half a brain agreed with him.

Race two, in Melbourne, was as diverting as Bahrain had been bland, and much of this – rightly – was put down to uncertain weather conditions, which have spawned exciting races since the beginning of time. It isn’t much of an intellectual stretch to understand that when you get a wet race track – even a damp one – you have less grip, and when you have less grip you get more driving errors and therefore changes in the order.

Not rocket science, is it? Which makes it the more unbelievable that, between them, the FIA and the Formula 1 teams – all of which have recently wakened up to the fact that racing fans like racing – cannot between them come up with a set of regulations to promote it. Last year, those teams which designed ‘trick’ double-diffusers into the concept of their cars deliberately ignored the aims of the FIA Overtaking Working Group – and the governing body then shamefully declared them permissible.

All concerned knew of the adverse effect this would have on the sport’s appeal, and all – for reasons of self-interest – chose to ignore it. A plague on their houses, as far as I’m concerned – but the FIA Court of Appeal stands especially culpable, for while it is in the DNA of F1 designers to look for loopholes in the rules, it is the interests of the sport which should always be paramount to the people who run it.

Patrick Head once pointed out that the Monaco Grand Prix would be highly diverting if all the cars ran with ‘Hockenheim wing settings’, and on another occasion even more radically suggested that wings be banned altogether – although that, he smilingly admitted, would never be accepted by the team owners given the amount of ‘sponsorship area’ on the car that would be lost.

For the fans, the people to whom manufacturers and sponsors are trying to sell things – and therefore, in the end, the people who pay for this sport – what constitutes the ideal racing car? No one ever defined that better than Tony Brooks, the great Vanwall and Ferrari driver of half a century ago: “A Grand Prix car,” he said, “should always have slightly more power than the chassis can comfortably handle…”

Simple, isn’t it? And the abiding problem of contemporary F1 is that the ratio between power and grip is out of kilter. The ban on traction control was a good move, but still the fact remains that F1 cars race today with 300 horsepower fewer than we have seen in the past – and don’t tell me that the grip levels in the 1980s (during the turbo era) were anything like those of today.

Some years ago Max Mosley decided that horsepower was getting out of control, and declared that the 3-litre V10 engine should be replaced by a 2.4-litre V8. He then imposed the ‘frozen engine spec’ rule, and that was probably essential, given the amounts of money being spent on the endless quest for another 10bhp.

Unfortunately, attempts to change the aerodynamic rules – so as to cut back on grip – have proved far less effective, and thus we have a situation where a dry day means a procession, where only adverse weather conditions can guarantee a memorable afternoon. Can’t be right.

After Bahrain, there was hand-wringing by some of the team principals, who had apparently become suddenly aware that a Grand Prix can be boring, and were demanding all manner of instant changes to spice up ‘The Show’. One instant change might be to be receptive in future to technical changes proposed by the Overtaking Working Group, rather than ignore them for the sake of self-interest.

And to think there was a time when we used to joke about spinklers…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to the first Motor Sport audio podcast of 2010. What does Nigel Roebuck really think about the return of Michael Schumacher and all the other news from the F1 paddock?

Next month we’re joined by 1978 Formula 1 World Champion Mario Andretti so make sure you ask him a question here!

Also make sure you give us your feedback below as it’s all very well us enjoying recording these, but if you don’t enjoy listening to them, then we aren’t doing a very good job…

If you don’t use iTunes then do use the following link: http://podcast.motorsportmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/January2010podcast.mp3

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

There are excellent reasons why Ari Vatanen should be the next president of the FIA – which is why it is unlikely he will be elected to the post in October.

Vatanen, one of the great rally drivers (World Champion in 1981), is a popular and well-respected man in the motor sport world, and already a trustee of the FIA Foundation. As well as that, he was an MEP for 10 years (standing down this year), and thus has experience of real-world politics, rather than the ersatz variety so relished in the Place de la Concorde. Vatanen is, as one F1 team principal put it, ‘a proper bloke’. He is also one who genuinely loves this sport – and that in itself would be a breakthrough after what we have been through in the last 18 years.

Apart from Vatanen, there appear to be two names on the table at the moment, and it’s fair to say that neither would be welcomed by the F1 community. Max Mosley, having held the post of president of the FIA since 1991, announced on June 24 that he would not stand for re-election in the autumn, then said on June 25 that perhaps – in light of horrid things said about him by those common FOTA tykes – he might do so, after all. Luca di Montezemolo, Mosley said, had given to the press an impression that he had been ousted. The very idea

Does Mosley really intend to stand again? Or is this all an elaborate preparation for sliding into office his preferred successor, one Jean Todt? No one – on the outside, anyway – has a clue, and, quite honestly, most are losing interest by the day. At Silverstone Bernie Ecclestone was told – in words of one syllable – by F1 luminaries that they were no longer prepared to work with Mosley, and it’s clear they have no wish to work with Todt, either.

If FOTA is to continue to operate within the framework of the FIA, and compete for the F1 World Championship in 2010 and beyond, its favoured choice for FIA president is emphatically Vatanen, a man it feels may be trusted. The teams, though, have no direct say in who shall be in the job.

In 2005, immediately before Mosley won yet another term as president, a ‘cabinet system’ was introduced at the FIA. What this means is that anyone aspiring to the presidency must accompany his application with a list of 22 names of folk within the FIA offering support for his candidacy. This is his ‘cabinet’.

None of the names in one person’s ‘cabinet’, however, may appear in another candidate’s list. Thus, the most powerful – and the best connected – candidates are likely to collar the bulk of the most influential FIA figures. Beginning to get the picture?

Not really a surprise that many FOTA team principals devoutly wish for a clean break from Max, the FIA, Bernie, CVC and the whole damn thing, is it? A ‘breakaway championship’? Bring it on, say I – unless somehow a man like Vatanen can find his way to the top floor in the Place de la Concorde, open the windows, and let in a little fresh air.

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In recent weeks a hot topic of debate has been the cost of the Formula 1 superlicence, which has been greatly – massively – increased for 2009, to the considerable displeasure of the drivers.

Difficult to know what to say about this. On the one hand, one might suggest that at a time when the majority of the population is suffering greatly at the hand of G Brown and Bankers Inc, it isn’t necessarily the easiest moment in which to find much sympathy for a profession in which most folk are, let’s say, well rewarded. It’s one thing, after all, for the hierarchy of RBS, HBOS and the rest to point out that they personally have lost money on the value of their shares, leaving them with fewer millions to see them through; quite another for Mr and Mrs Average to have lost everything.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but it is a standing joke in racing circles that if F1 drivers are adept at demanding huge sums of money, they are even better at keeping it; ’twas ever thus.

That said, however, the rise in the price of a superlicence proposed by the FIA is simply staggering. In 2008 it cost 1725 euros, plus 456 euros per point scored the previous year. Thus Kimi Räikkönen, the ’07 World Champion with 110 points, will have paid 51,885 euros for his ’08 licence, a not inconsiderable sum to most people, but one which will have made little dent in Kimi’s rumoured Ferrari retainer of $40m.

Last year Räikkönen scored but 75 points – but the bill for his 2009 licence will be rather greater: 160,000 euros. Max Mosley has decided that the price of a licence should now be 10,000 euros, plus 2000 euros per point. Lewis Hamilton’s will come out at a cool 206,000 euros…

In absolute terms, these sums are small change to such as Hamilton and Räikkönen, but not all Grand Prix drivers are paid like city traders. Felipe Massa, for example, earns a smallish fraction of Räikkönen’s retainer, yet his licence will cost him a great deal more than Kimi, because he scored many more points last year.
Let’s not worry too much for Felipe, however, for he is still very well rewarded by Ferrari. A driver like Timo Glock is a different matter, however. He was an F1 rookie last year, and is not in the big money league, yet he scored 25 points, and will thus have to fork out 60,000 euros if he wants to go racing this year. No surprise that Timo is not too thrilled.

As I say, at a time like this I’m not suggesting we should waste too many tears on the drivers’ Superlicence fees, but the scale of the increase does seem a touch extreme, even by Mosley standards. Max justifies it by pointing out that the FIA ‘spends a fortune on safety, and it is for the benefit of the drivers’. True enough, but this has been the case for countless years (as is also true of telephone-number retainers), so why the sudden leap in licence fees now? A portion of the $100,000,000 fine meted out to McLaren in 2007 must surely, after all, have gone some way towards improving safety.

Still, private jets etc are pricey, and the governing body is expensive to run. The drivers have duly voiced their dissatisfaction with the increase in fees, and Mosley has reacted in the conciliatory manner which has marked his whole career: anyone who hasn’t forked out for his new licence by the time of the Australian Grand Prix will not be on the grid.

Some have cynically suggested that safety costs may indeed go up this year, thanks to the advent of KERS. “That’s something else,” one driver murmured, “that only Max is in favour of…”

Happy days in Formula 1, then. In NASCAR, where many drivers make mega-bucks, the cost of a licence comes out at $4000…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The start of another year may find you feeling a little ramfeezled. I borrow this wonderful word from the great Scottish poet Robert Burns who was no stranger to the hangover after a night on the whiskies of his birthplace.

But it may not be Christmas and New Year revelling that finds you in this condition. Getting back to work is never easy, especially when the world around us appears to be in such turmoil. And the little world of motor racing has not escaped what may turn out to be some kind of watershed in our times.

Grand Prix teams – and freelance writers – do not have a fortnight’s holiday for Christmas even when the season starts a little later, as it does this year. There are new cars to be built, new sponsors to be charmed and existing ones to be reassured. Not easy this year. In both cases.

Talking to Ian Phillips (above) at Force India, you get it straight from the hip. “There will always be new sponsors,” he says, “but right now they are going to have to be mighty brave.” He should know, having survived four decades with, among others, Jordan, Midland, Spyker and now Force India. These are not comfortable times for a bank, or a car manufacturer, to justify a major partnership to its shareholders.

Costs are coming down, however, and not before time. Sir Jackie Stewart is right when he says that Formula 1 should have been preparing itself for leaner times way before the current economic woes became headlines. He is also right when he suggests that the FIA should, following the reign of Max Mosley, have a president from outside the motor racing business. It would, he argues, be a healthier and more efficient alternative to the tightly held and claustrophobic kingdom to which we have become accustomed.

What really matters to people like us are the cars. And, of course, the racing. So what can we expect from the 2009 season? Predictions, especially about the future, are always to be taken with a pinch of salt but there are some indicators.

Firstly, KERS might be a mighty flop, a white elephant rather than an engineering miracle. This rather depends on who you are talking to, as is ever the case. BMW has spent a great deal of time and money on developing its own system, sacrificing some development of the 2008 car to do so. But there are many in Munich who fear that KERS may be either postponed or, at worst, put back on the shelf. Unlikely, but there are vague murmurs that the mighty Scuderia is not as far advanced as it might be and may even consider asking the FIA for some kind of postponement. Again unlikely, but millions of euros have been spent, especially in Munich, and it is not preposterous to suggest that whoever has the best system in Melbourne may just run away with the first few races. For many teams, dealing with new aerodynamics, slick tyres and less testing is more than enough, without the extra anxieties of an energy recovery system.

Christian Horner, the boss at Red Bull, says that a few teams will have KERS on the cars in Melbourne but, in his view, the advantage of extra power may not prove to be worth the extra weight and complexity of the various systems. As with any other new component on a racing car, these new KERS systems – which are not mandatory – will only be run in race trim if the evidence is there on the stopwatch.

Meanwhile Happy New Year everyone! Try watching Pink Panther films instead of the news bulletins. You will feel a whole lot less ramfeezled.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Years ago I concluded an interview with Bernie Ecclestone with a question about his relationship with Max Mosley. We all sit there in the press room, I said, and endlessly ask, ‘Well, are they joined at the hip, or what? Are they really at loggerheads about this or that? Or is it all a game?’

Bernie grinned. “I think we’d better leave it like that. It’s a good place to finish, isn’t it?”

Over the weekend of the Canadian Grand Prix, paddock chat suggested that, while their fundamental friendship remained, the two men had fallen out professionally, and in a big way. True or not? I asked Ecclestone about the current state of affairs.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “There was no problem until this whole business with Max was reported, but now all the chief executives of the big companies involved in F1 are saying that… perhaps he shouldn’t be the president of the FIA. And the teams are saying that, too. I’m in the middle, really. I have no problem with Max personally. He was a mate of mine before this all this came up, and he’s a mate of mine still.”

Ecclestone was in New York on June 3, the day of the FIA General Assembly vote (to decide whether or not Mosley should remain in office), and in Montréal, five days later, I was told by an FIA man that so livid was Mosley with Ecclestone that there had been no contact between them since – indeed, he said, Max had declined to take Bernie’s calls. Was that true? “Yes,” said Ecclestone. “Absolutely true. I’ve had no discussions with him since the vote.”

I confess that, since the start of this whole affair, I believed Ecclestone’s role in deciding Mosley’s future was pivotal, in the sense that I thought Max would only go when Bernie told him the game was up. Very late in the day – some would say too late – he finally gave an interview, in which he implored him to resign before the vote.

1977 French Grand Prix, Dijon-Prenois, France. Then owner of Brabham, Ecclestone, has a chat with the March Engineering team manager, Mosley.

So have the two men really fallen out this time, or is it merely what they wish us to believe because they’re working to an agenda, and it suits their purpose? There’s no doubt that fundamental differences exist in their ideas about the content of the next Concorde Agreement, but – maybe I’m wrong – still it’s mighty difficult for me to believe that their legendary ‘double act’ has been seriously compromised.

We live in interesting times, as Mosley is fond of saying. And potentially very damaging times for Formula 1. Watch this space, as they say.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

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The Max Mosley scandal has dominated much of our time and energy this month, and that is reflected in the June issue (on sale Friday May 2) of Motor Sport. It was inevitable. When motor racing becomes a regular subject for the front pages of national newspapers – for all the wrong reasons – we feel compelled to take a stand. It’s the least you, our readers, should expect.

We’ve taken a hard line on Mosley because we believe his position as FIA President, the most important job in world motor sport, is untenable. As you’ll read in Matters of Moment and Nigel Roebuck’s excellent column, we’re not taking a moral stance here. This has nothing to do with what Mosley does in his private life. What counts is the damaging effect these revelations are having, and will continue to have, on our sport. That’s all we care about.

But what do you think? Let me know by clicking here. I’d value your opinions and we’ll print a selection of your views in the next issue so that the FIA members know exactly what Motor Sport’s readers think ahead of the General Assembly meeting on June 3.

Happily, the magazine has a lot of pages these days, so there is plenty more to read in the issue aside from this grubby and unpleasant political scandal. You’ll be pleased to see there is the usual wide variety of stories about actual motor racing, past and present, too!

My highlights? Well, as ever Simon Taylor’s ‘Lunch with…’ feature is a treat. The legendary Chris Amon has always been great company, and Simon’s only problem this month was fitting everything in to eight pages. Take some time to enjoy it. You won’t be disappointed.

Nigel found a welcome diversion from the Mosley saga by writing about one of his childhood heroes, the inspirational Archie Scott Brown who died 50 years ago this month. Meanwhile, our US editor Gordon Kirby presents an extract from his new biography of Rick Mears, telling the story of how the great oval racer turned down the chance for F1 stardom.

We also have a fantastic new columnist in Mat Oxley, one of the finest motorcycle writers around. Bike racing is unfamiliar territory for Motor Sport, but we think you’ll enjoy the extra diversity it will bring to our pages. Mat will return from time to time to bring us updates from the MotoGP world, and as he has this month, he’ll draw some fascinating parallels to the four-wheeled sport.

Enjoy the issue, and don’t forget to give us your opinion on the FIA president. We want to know what you think.

Comment on the Mosley scandal

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Is Max Mosley’s position untenable? Or does his private life not affect his work as the president of the FIA?

Let us know what you think and we’ll publish a selection of your comments in the next edition of Motor Sport.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine