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10. Kimi Räikkönen

Increasingly, Kimi Räikkönen comes across as a disinterested Formula 1 driver. Any sense that last year may have been a blip has faded further. In Räikkönen’s favour, it is clear that his Ferrari car is probably one of the worst he has driven in years. But once again he is being outclassed by Felipe Massa.

His season has not been without its highlights. Räikkönen was the first to score a point for Ferrari in Bahrain, and has produced Ferrari’s one and only podium, in Monaco, after almost grabbing pole with an awesome lap in qualifying. But Massa has strung together a more impressive and consistent run of results.

9. Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton is having a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde year. He began the season putting in some very impressive performances in a car that patently wasn’t up to the job. So he was battling for 3rd in Australia, and grabbed a superb 4th in Bahrain. But he has also made a couple of catastrophic errors, most notably during qualifying at Monaco. The team felt they had a good chance of getting a good result, but Hamilton binned the car during qualifying and lined up last on the grid.

Interestingly, at the start of the year Hamilton came across as frustrated and terse during interviews, yet he was putting in good performances. Today he is more relaxed, but his performances are sloppier (witness his mistakes at Silverstone). I wonder if he has given up trying. Not the spirit you like to see as a fan. This is a learning year for Hamilton, and I’m sure he’ll emerge at the other end as a much more complete driver, but a lot depends on his attitude from now on.

8. Jarno Trulli

Trulli has had a decent season. As the Toyota’s performance has dropped off, his race results have not dropped off as much as Glock’s have. His qualifying performances are as great as always, and he has grabbed another pole position in Bahrain this year. But unusually, his race performances seem to be holding up quite well.

In fact, this year Trulli’s Achilles’ heel seems to be his starts. His starts at Silverstone and Spain were particularly sluggish. Beyond that, it’s difficult to find any real fault in Trulli’s performances this year so far.

7. Fernando Alonso

I find it difficult to say much about Fernando Alonso this year. I have not noticed him an awful lot, and nothing about his results sticks out. He is doing exactly what you expect him to, which for most drivers is great. But I expect something more from Alonso.

Clearly, his car is not good. But at the start of last year his car was not very good either. In fairness, this time last year I felt disappointed with Alonso too. Then I placed him 8th. Let’s see what he can do in the second half of this season.

6. Felipe Massa

Massa is having a fairly solid season. The only real goof he has made is a bit of a ragged performance in qualifying at Monaco, which he rectified for the race by finishing 4th.

Apart from that, he has produced the obligatory good performance at Turkey, and he put last year’s Silverstone nightmare behind him to finish 4th. He also came very close to scoring a great result at China before his car broke down. He was thwarted in Spain by a fuel problem that was no fault of his own.

5. Nico Rosberg

This year I think Nico Rosberg is doing the business. At last! In general, I have been disappointed at the way Rosberg’s career has unfolded. But this year you have to say that his performances are very consistent, and he is regularly scoring respectable amounts of points.

The jury is out on whether the Williams is a good car or not. My impression is that, despite the glory-runs in practice sessions, the Williams is not up to scratch and is very firmly a midfield car. Just have a look at what Nakajima is doing. The gap between the Williams drivers in the Drivers’ Championship (7th to 20th) is larger than any other team mate battle, even Alonso versus Piquet. In this respect, you have to applaud Nico Rosberg this year.

4. Rubens Barrichello

It’s Lazarus! Just five months ago it seemed as though Barrichello was never going to race in F1 again. Now look at him — 2nd in the World Drivers’ Championship. In truth, though, the superiority of the Brawn car flatters Barrichello.

For the most part this season, Barrichello’s driving has been a bit sloppy, and he now looks past his best. This reminds me a lot of David Coulthard’s season last year. Take his crash-tastic Australian Grand Prix, or his lacklustre performance in Turkey.

One thing that Barrichello has going for him is that he seems to be driving the way Brawn’s weekend unfolds as a team. We hear about how Button makes heavy use of Barrichello’s set-up data, and you get the sense that it has saved the Brit’s skin a few times this year.

3. Mark Webber

After years of unfulfilled promise, Mark Webber finally has a car that allows him to deliver the goods. And his performances so far are not too bad. Webber’s experience has been put to good use, and his superior racecraft has allowed him to gazump Vettel on the occasions when the German has got bogged down behind another car.

But there is a major question mark over his qualifying performances. Sebastian Vettel has outqualified him in every race so far. And that first win still eludes him. He will be hoping to change that in the second half of the season. He’s got to if he wants to challenge for the Championship. This could be the best opportunity of his career.

2. Sebastian Vettel

I don’t think many can have expected Vettel to be challenging for the Championship so early on in his career. Most will have expected him to make a move to a bigger team before being in that position. But given a surprisingly good Red Bull car, Vettel already faces his big opportunity.

So far, it is clear that he is not a complete driver. Probably not ready to win the World Championship. His qualifying performances are usually great, but he is still variable during races. Both of his wins this season have come from pole position, and he threw another opportunity away in Turkey with a disastrous first-lap mistake. And there is also now a major question mark over his ability to overtake, having got bogged down behind Hamilton in Bahrain, Massa in Spain and Button in Turkey.

1. Jenson Button

What can you say? Button has been an absolute revelation this season. I was disappointed after a dodgy 2008 from him, and he didn’t look like he had much to look forward to. Now, with a good car in his hands, the question has been: can he step up to the plate? And you have to conclude that he has.

Six wins out of eight races says it all, and Button has found himself in the odd position of being compared with names like Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher. Even Ross Brawn himself has said he is seeing similarities between Button and Schumacher.

It’s no accident, and it’s not just because he’s driving the best car. For one thing, he is easily outclassing Rubens Barrichello. But more than that, Button is now more focussed and is working harder. He has genuinely become a better driver in these circumstances. It might make him, in his words, “a right boring bastard”. But it will almost certainly win him the World Championship, and rightly so.

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I can hardly believe it — this three week break marks the mid-point of the season. As such, it is a good opportunity to take stock, have a little look back and see how the drivers are doing.

20. Sébastien Bourdais

Last year he asked us to wait to judge him, and see how he performs on slick tyres. They were supposed to suit them better. But there is no real perceptible improvement in his performance. In fact, he may even be worse than last season. Bottom of the pile for me.

19. Adrian Sutil

This is his third full season in Formula 1 and we still haven’t seen what the hype was about. Sutil has not really come close to repeating the few flashes of promise we have seen during his career. The one moment was during the Malaysian Grand Prix when he was running as high as 6th — before spinning off (admittedly in treacherous conditions). After three years, I think we should have seen a bit more by now.

18. Kazuki Nakajima

The disappointment of the season. He spent much of 2008 within touching distance of his fancied team-mate Nico Rosberg in the Drivers’ Championship. You might have expected him to improve this year. Instead, we are seeing a more lacklustre Nakajima who has failed to score a point. Indeed, he is yet even to finish in the top 10 all year.

One of the real head-scratchers of Nakajima’s season include successfully completing 77 laps at Monaco, only to crash on the final one. A chink of light was in sight when he qualified 5th at Silverstone, only to drop like a stone through the field during the race, eventually finishing 11th (which is still his best of the season).

17. Nelsinho Piquet

Nelsinho Piquet’s season is unfolding in much the same way as last year did — a bit lacklustre in general, but with a couple of half-decent results here and there. This year’s Renault does appear to be a bit of a shed, but he has once again been comprehensively beaten by his team mate.

But given that Alonso is, in my view, the best driver since Schumacher, it’s an unfair comparison. Maybe it’s better to note that Piquet has indeed beaten Alonso once (albeit in Britain, where Alonso was chronically held up by an ailing Heidfeld). But Piquet has more to do if he wants to remain in F1 for a third year.

16. Sébastien Buemi

We should be careful when judging Buemi just now. He is the only rookie in the field. And we have seen some stunning rookie performances in recent years — Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica. So in that sense, at the moment Buemi looks a bit more plain than he may turn out to be in the long run.

In fact, I would say that it is a good thing that Buemi’s season so far has consisted of anonymity rather than idiocy (although crashing into Piquet in Monaco can be filed under ‘idiocy’). Plus, he has collected a few points, though we should bear in mind that he inherited two of them in Australia thanks to the joined-up brain-fade of two drivers in front of him. One slightly worrying thing is that he seems to have become worse as the season has progressed, but that may be a blip.

15. Heikki Kovalainen

Kovalainen races this season in difficult circumstances. His car is among the worst on the grid, and to add insult to injury his team-mate is a well-hyped World Champion. Even taking this into account though, Kovalainen’s performances have, in general, failed to meet expectations.

He started the season off with a first-lap crash in Australia, then unaccountably spun off on lap one in Malaysia. At the other end of this half of the season, he has been involved in a silly scrap with Sébastien Bourdais in Britain, and an unforced spin into the barriers at Monaco. A relatively good performance in China hasn’t made up for the rest of his poor season.

14. Timo Glock

Glock is another driver whose season began well, but has rapidly faded away towards the mid-point of the season. Unquestionably, his Toyota car has lost any advantage it had at the start of the season. But his team mate Jarno Trulli continues to make the most of the situation, and Glock’s season has been oddly anonymous.

He can be relied on to collect a steady haul of points when the car is up to it, but signs of his talent are reticent in revealing themselves. A super performance in treacherous conditions in Malaysia is the only notable moment of his season that I can think of.

13. Nick Heidfeld

Nick Heidfeld’s season has been greatly constrained by his poor equipment. On the plus side, he has scored more points than Kubica, mostly thanks to a haul gained at the shortened Malaysian Grand Prix. He finished 2nd there but if the race ran to full distance he certainly wouldn’t have been that high up. Indeed, he was lucky to even be there after what was, in truth, a flaky performance.

At least this year, unlike last year, he is beating Robert Kubica. But the design of the car does not disadvantage him as much as it does Kubica.

12. Robert Kubica

How the mighty have fallen. From challenging for the Championship in 2008, today Robert Kubica languishes at the arse end of the table, having just scored his first points in Turkey. To add insult to injury, he has already used up six of his allocated eight engines. In fairness, most of it isn’t his fault. By all accounts, his BMW car is awful, and it’s not helped by the fact that it was designed around a kers that was always going to disadvantage a driver of his size.

My overriding memory of Kubica’s racing this season has been his fight with Vettel at the front in Australia. That was back when the future still seemed bright. Mario Theissen said he would have won if he didn’t get tangled up with Sebastian Vettel. There was good and bad in that performance from Kubica, which maybe says it all about his season.

11. Giancarlo Fisichella

I am not the greatest fan of Giancarlo Fisichella. Indeed, if I was in charge at Force India, I wouldn’t have given him a race seat. He started the year badly too, after embarrassingly missing his pit box in Australia, an incident that is said to have tried the patience of his team to the limit.

Aside from incidents like this though, you sense that Fisichella is squeezing the maximum out of the Force India car this year. Given that this is a team on the up, that could mean he will be scoring points soon. He has come close twice already this season (unlike Sutil), with commendable performances in both Monaco and Britain.

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A deal has been struck between Max Mosley, Fota and Bernie Ecclestone, and the threat of a breakaway series has been averted. I think there were a lot of people out there who quite liked the idea of a breakaway series. Indeed, given the choice between Max Mosley’s rotten vision and a Fota-run series, I would have gone for the Fota series every time.

But a split would have been a calamitous situation. The new series, despite having all the big names and probably some decent circuits, would still have taken some time to find its feet. Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Fota series would have got good television coverage. Don’t forget that for the vast majority of fans, television is the only way we can consume the sport that we love, so this is an essential element.

In a lot of ways, the roots of the current problem in Formula 1 lie with Bernie Ecclestone. Or, to be more precise, CVC. They are the ones who suck the money out of the sport in order to pay the interest on their debts. That is why F1 ends up visiting sterile circuits with minuscule crowds — because those governments will pay huge sums of money for the privilege of holding an F1 race. That is probably also the reason for the fervour over cost cutting. If the teams spend less, Bernie can get away with giving the teams less of the sport’s revenues, and giving CVC more of them.

But despite that problem with CVC, I can’t find it in myself to be too angry with Bernie Ecclestone. In truth, he has done a great job of promoting the sport, and F1 may never have appealed to me were it not for Bernie’s efforts. Sure, there are a lot of areas where he can improve, particularly on the dire online offering.

But under Bernie Ecclestone, the television coverage of Formula 1 has been revolutionised. He got his fingers burnt with the adventurous F1 Digital+ endeavour. But while those innovatory days may be no more (and it is notable that F1 is still not broadcast in HD), today’s FOM-produced World Feed (used for all races except Monaco and Japan) is based on many of those innovations and television coverage has improved immeasurably over the past fifteen or so years.

We seldom have to deal with relatively amateurish efforts from the host broadcasters. Just compare these two videos of the same incident as it unfolded live. One is from the FOM F1 Digital+ World Feed, and the other was from the host broadcaster. (To view them side-by-side ‘as live’, start the second video when the first video reaches 17 seconds.)

The difference in quality is massive. F1 Digital+ caught the accident live so viewers knew immediately what happened. This was no coincidence. It happened because a system of sensors around the circuit could detect when cars were running close together, and coverage automatically switched to those cars in the expectation of some kind of incident unfolding. Later, replays from multiple angles enhanced the viewer’s understanding of the incident.

Meanwhile, the host broadcaster cut to Ralf Schumacher climbing out of his car ten seconds after the incident originally started. And it was a long time until viewers found out that the accident also involved Jacques Villeneuve — and there was only one angle of the incident. Note also how Martin Brundle had to rely on the superior coverage which he could see outside his commentary box window to tell viewers that Villeneuve was unhurt.

The Australian host broadcasters were not dummies. They just did the best job they could with the resources they had at their disposal. “Bernievision” was only good because of heavy investment and years of experimentation.

Bernie’s television operation was pretty impressive even in 2001, though not all of the innovations remain in today’s coverage. But it is thanks to Bernie Ecclestone that today’s coverage is more like the first video than the second one. A Fota-run championship would not have had such a slick operation going from day one, and the fans would have been worse off for it.

(For more on the amazing “Bernievision”, check out these decade-old articles on GrandPrix.com: Inside Bakersville and Inside the F1 digital television centre.)

Then there is the question of whether it would have had any coverage at all. The BBC would have been scared off, and television executives would have been confused. They want the World Championship, whether or not an alternative series is better in the eyes of the fans. Take, for instance, the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, which I hear is better than the FIA’s World Rally Championship. Not that I’d know, because the former is ghettoised on Eurosport while the FIA’s weak WRC gets terrestrial coverage.

No matter if it has all the current teams and good circuits — signing up to show a new series is a risk which television executives wouldn’t want to take. The prospect of the best F1 series being on some pay channel and having no terrestrial coverage was a real one. That aspect of the breakaway scared me.

On the other hand, the proposed breakaway presented the opportunity to create a great new version of Formula 1, unshackled from the financial needs of CVC or the warped politics of Max Mosley. Fota had some crazy ideas, but they carried out market research and were far more receptive to the views of fans than the FIA have ever been.

I particularly liked the idea that the new series could have been particularly focussed on attracting an American audience. The FIA Formula 1 Championship has dumped on US fans time and again, and today there is no race in North America even though it is a major market for the manufacturers.

There would also have been a careful look at ticket prices and the fees circuits have to pay to hold an F1 race. No-one (apart from Bernie apparently) likes to arrive at sterile circuits with a dozen people in the grandstand. It comes across on television too, whether or not FOM’s cameramen are instructed to avoid shots of empty grandstands.

I could feel the atmosphere of the passionate British crowd on the television. The difference could hardly be more stark from the previous race at Turkey, where the crowd was around 10% of the size. And Silverstone is a circuit that Bernie wants to move away from.

Even the little things that are wrong with F1 could have had the magnifying glass applied to them. Such as, why can’t a driver keep the same number for his whole career. In other categories such as Nascar or MotoGP, a driver’s number becomes part of his legend, every bit as important as, say, his helmet design. Even in the history of Formula 1, the number 27 car is almost synonymous with Gilles Villeneuve. Imagine the marketing potential too. But in the clinical world of Formula 1, driver numbers are determined by the positions of last year’s Constructors’ Championship.

In short, the breakaway could have been a great opportunity to fix everything that is broken with F1. I doubt the breakaway would have been a true ’split’, and it probably wouldn’t have had the same consequences as the Cart / IRL split. It was pretty clear from the fact that the FIA never released a finalised 2010 entry list that the FIA didn’t have a 2010 F1 Championship to speak of, and Fota’s would have been the only show in town.

That, I think, is why the deal must be seen as a victory for Fota. It has turned out to be a powerful organisation that did after all have the ability to at last stand up to Max Mosley’s dictatorial authority.

There is a part of me that suspects that the FIA as an organisation simply isn’t fit for the purpose of overseeing motorsports. We will eventually see how things develop with Max Mosley’s successor. I think today is just the starting point though, and we will see some more loose ends being tied up in the coming months. There will be power struggles there too, I am sure.

It looks like these negotiations will in fact be handled by Michel Boeri. That in itself is interesting because he is the promoter of the Monaco Grand Prix. It was reported that he would take the Monaco GP with him to the Fota camp if the breakaway went ahead.

What we need now, most of all, is someone in charge of the FIA who is not a glorified politician, constantly interfering. I remember Maurice Hamilton making the point once that everyone knows who Max Mosley is, and many people can tell you that Jean-Marie Balestre was his predecessor. But not many can tell you who Balestre’s predecessor was (for you history buffs, on the Fisa side it was Pierre Ugeux, and in the FIA it was Paul Metternich). Yet the sport still ran.

It sounds like from now on there will be more checks and balances in place, with the F1 Commission being given more of a say from now on. No doubt Fota will continue to play its role too, and I think it would be best for everyone if Williams and Force India re-joined and USF1, Campos and Manor all joined too. That way the teams, who create the sport, can have a say in its governance too.

Speaking of the new teams, I think as we sit here today, with much of the damage repaired, the biggest shame of this episode is that two capable teams have been denied a place on the entry list as a result of Max Mosley’s petty politicking. I think many of us can’t wait to see Prodrive finally get a chance to enter F1, and Lola were a promising prospect too.

No doubt the FIA actually had a tough choice to make, as according to Joe Saward at least the Manor Grand Prix team is actually a seriously strong prospect. With costs set to be cut and a more stable future for F1 promised, and with that troublesome Max fellow out of the way, at least we know there are capable teams that are ready to fill any potential gaps that appear.

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It’s difficult to know what to think of this season. Although there is a novelty in the fact that the big teams are all floundering, the racing hasn’t exactly been top-notch all season — certainly not at the front. Even with Button neutered, it just left the door open for someone else to put in a dominant performance at the front.

Incidentally, my brother made a good point that I hadn’t thought about before. There isn’t really anything novel about the people at the front at all. He noted that since the early 1990s, the vast majority of championships have been won by two men: Adrian Newey and Ross Brawn. From 1992 until 2004, these two men hoovered up every title going. Look whose cars are battling for the Championship this year.

It is still nice to see a couple of small(-ish) teams showing the big names how it’s done, but it doesn’t make the racing any better. The British Grand Prix continued the trend. There was not much overtaking, and we saw a noticeably sluggish Nick Heidfeld, lapping at around 1.5s slower than those in front of him, have very little trouble keeping the pacier Alonso behind, and an orderly queue duly formed.

From lap 2 onwards, everyone’s first stint was interminably dull. It doesn’t say much for the new aero regulations. It’s tempting to blame the FIA, but you may as well blame the Overtaking Working Group, mostly made up of people who today represent Fota.

I sensed everyone becoming bemused at just how little overtaking there was. At one point during the BBC’s coverage the FOM World Feed cut to an onboard of Lewis Hamilton when he should have been lining someone up when Martin Brundle suddenly blurted: “He’s on the rev limit!” like a lightbulb went off in his head. The FIA’s engine regulations prevent overtaking.

In fairness, Silverstone doesn’t particularly lend itself to overtaking anyway, being mostly made up of high-speed corners. It is more the sort of place where drivers will get caught out by the difficult high-speed sections and the sharper drivers can take advantage in these moments.

So we saw a half-decent battle between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton as first the Spaniard made a mistake at Woodcote. Then Hamilton got caught out at Becketts to allow Alonso to re-take the position. But Alonso was totally powerless in the first stint to do anything about the slow but steady Heidfeld. We had to rely on drivers making unforced errors for any position changes to be made.

Apart from the lack of overtaking, what are the major talking points of the race?

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the weekend was the fact that Button never got to grips with the situation. I always suspected that Barrichello would have the upper hand at Silverstone. It is effectively his second “home” race, he knows the place like the back of his hand and he has always gone well there. But I wasn’t prepared for the scale of Button’s struggles.

We have seen time and again this season Button struggle through Friday Practice and only get to grips with his car on Saturday, sometimes just in time to set his final flying lap. This weekend it was as if it never happened. The Brawn doesn’t like cold temperatures, and the British Grand Prix will be among the coolest of the season. There were also no heavy braking areas, which is apparently the Brawn’s strong point. Meanwhile, the high-speed corners played to Red Bull’s advantage.

But look at who Button was beaten by. Ahead of him on the grid were Jarno Trulli and, of all people, Kazuki Nakajima. Ahead of him in the race were Massa and Rosberg — and even that was mainly due to a Brawn strategy. It is true that Button was heavily disadvantaged at the start by Trulli’s sluggish getaway, but it was Button who qualified behind Trulli in the first place.

Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel, who must be the favourite to challenge Button for the title, put in a flawless performance. In stark contrast to Turkey, where Button was majestic and Vettel floundered, the young German star didn’t put a foot wrong all race. He pulled out a lead of over a second per lap in the first stint, which you don’t see too often these days. As the cars passed the chequered flag, Vettel’s advantage over Button was 46 seconds.

Nakajima had a career-best 5th position on the grid, but was unable to take advantage. In fact, he mysteriously dropped down the order after his first pit stop, and afterwards Nakajima was at a loss, saying, There weren’t any particular reasons for it. The good qualifying performance is encouraging, but it means nothing if the driver can’t make the most of it during the race.

Nakajima even ended up behind Giancarlo Fisichella’s Force India. But in fairness, it was a stellar effort from Fisi, helped largely by an awesome start which saw him gain five places in the first lap. He is, at last, beginning to turn in some head-turning performances in that car, and they surely deserve to score a point with him soon. 10th place is excellent, especially considering there were only two retirements, and they were both behind him anyway.

Then there is the collision between Heikki Kovalainen and Sébastien Bourdais. I think you have to blame Kovalainen for that one. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing, and was weaving about like a drunk driver. Bourdais did very little to aggravate the situation and I don’t know what else he could have been expected to do.

So for the first time in a while we have seen Brawn on the back foot, and Red Bull have been given wings. We sit effectively at the half-way point of the season, and you wonder if this sets the scene for the rest of the season. But with a three week break until the next race in Germany there is a lot of time for the teams to improve their cars and for everyone to reflect on the situation.

There is a bit of politics to get out of the way first though, and I fear that the intervening three weeks will be dominated by non-racing matters.

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I have not had sufficient time to sit down and write about my reaction to the Fota’s threat to set up a breakaway championship. I have had a busy day, and when I came home I spent three or four hours solidly catching up on all the news in my RSS reader.

I first heard about it when I came home from the pub last night and they were talking about it on the radio! Incidentally, my gut reaction was to phone up Radio 5 Live to try and get on air to speak about it. But in the emotion of the moment I became inarticulate and it’s no surprise that I didn’t get on the air.

Probably just as well. If you’ve been reading my previous posts, you won’t be surprised to learn what I think about Max Mosley’s behaviour in this situation.

I have not had the chance to watch Max Mosley’s interview with the BBC, but I presume I have read about all the highlights. A story by Autosport about this interview particularly caught my eye though.

Here is the reason why Max Mosley thinks he has to stay as President of the FIA:

I don’t want to go on too long, but the difficulty they are putting me in is that even if I wanted to stop this October, they are making it very difficult for me to do so.

So actually everything they are doing is counterproductive because the people in the FIA are saying we have all this trouble, we are being attacked and you must stay.

Whereas if we had peace and I said I would actually like to stop in October, then they are very nice. They all say they want me to stay, but they wouldn’t really mind and someone else would come along.

In other words, Max Mosley is the only man capable of doing the job as FIA President. This is a view that Mosley has expressed time and again since at least 2004, and probably before.

But by the end of the article it’s a very different picture indeed!

I am the figurehead because I happen to be the president, but I cannot move without the authority of all these different countries. We have 120 different countries and each is represented by the head of motorsport in that country. It is a huge organisation, so the idea that it is somehow me, that is really not the issue.

What it is is that they want to take over the governance of the sport from the FIA and run it themselves. They want to take over the money from Bernie and have that for themselves.

Well, the first thing they have to do is get rid of me, but then whoever replaced me would be exactly the same - he would defend the interests of the FIA because the championship belongs to them. So, unless they found somebody who was prepared to let it all go, it wouldn’t work. If I dropped dead tomorrow there would be somebody taking exactly the same position.

In other words, Max Mosley is not the only man capable of doing the job of FIA President!

I keep on trying to work out what the ideology of Max Mosley is, in a vain attempt to work out what his long term plan for F1 is. Time and again, though, his policies are directly contradictory (take the drive for cutting costs which coincides with the introduction of the hideously expensive kers for just one example).

It’s no different this time. He is only interested in his power, which is why he keeps on adopting these contradictory positions — whatever suits his needs best at that particular time. He appears to have done a complete U-turn in just one interview.

Can’t Max Mosley make his mind up? He is tying himself in knots with his increasingly desperate justifications for his actions.

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