A five-point plan to change Formula 1

This is unexpected - and I must say, it feels quite strange. On November 28 2007 I posted what I thought was my final ever story to Autosport - and yet a little over nine years later, here I am again. I thought I was done with a title that had previously played a huge part in my life. As it turns out, and to my great surprise, Autosport is still unfinished business.

Felipe Massa, eat your heart out.

As you'll no doubt have seen, my old comrade Nigel Roebuck has also returned to the 'mothership' to revive his signature Fifth Column. We left together and we've come back together - believe it or not, in both cases entirely by coincidence. It's a huge bonus that I get to continue working with the master of Formula 1 writers.

Our return to this parish coincides with a time of huge transition, both for Autosport and the growing media network to which it now belongs, and for F1 itself. New brooms and all that. A change of ownership usually offers exciting new horizons, and that's certainly true in our corner of the world - and the same should be the case in grand prix racing, too.

Liberty Media Group's clearance to press ahead and take control of F1's commercial rights, confirmed last week first by its board and then the FIA, offers more than a glimmer of hope that long-bemoaned travesties in the running of the sport can now be resolved.

The last time I was here, Max Mosley was still wielding power in his own inimitable, Machiavellian way. Few who had the misfortune to deal with him miss those days - but it must be said, for all the unpleasantness, the patronising and schoolboy sniggering, at least he used his towering intellect to form a strategy for the future of F1.

A decade later, his vision built around budget caps that didn't happen and world-relevant technologies that did can be picked apart for better and for worse. It's just a pity that by the time his plan was set into action he'd already undermined any of the good work by selling the commercial rights down the river for no less than 113 years, for a small percentage of their real worth, to his old mate Bernie Ecclestone.

It was the unholy deal that led F1 directly into the convoluted mess that Liberty must unpick today.

Mosley's reign crumbled in astonishing circumstances in 2008, since when he's turned his wrath on the freedom of the press. The tabloid 'sting' he endured at the hands of the News of the World lit a fire that wouldn't be quenched. The result could be a suitably murky legacy that will probably outstrip in magnitude anything Mosley could ever have achieved in the relatively parochial arena of motor racing.

It's been hugely disappointing that in his wake, a void has opened up. The lack of vision and clear leadership in F1 has been astonishing. Fenced in by European law and that deal, the FIA is confined to a role as regulator alone, and it's the teams - at least the biggest and most powerful ones - that have controlled F1's future direction, with all an too predictable result.

Self-interest and greed withered the green shoots of hope that the short-lived Formula One Teams Association had sown, leaving the ironically titled Strategy Group (yeah, right!) to bicker amongst itself.

They do love a regulation change, of course. There was the big one in 2009, which slashed downforce in half; then came the engine change in 2014 from 2.4-litre V8s to 'world-relevant' 1.6-litre turbo hybrids; and now we await a new wide-track era in which all that downforce will come back to make the cars much faster.

Sceptics say motor racing is all about nothing more than going round in circles. Perhaps they have a point.

When you take a step back and consider it, the lack of strategy through this past decade takes your breath away. F1 always has been reactionary, but with the teams running the asylum that was only going to be heightened.

But as I said at the top, new horizons are now in view. The change of ownership is an opportunity, one that grand prix racing can't afford to waste. Here's a chance to run this sport properly, on sound business and sporting principles that will offer stability, and finally a vision.

The 'wish-list' we'd present to Liberty features ideas that would certainly be groundbreaking - but only because they are based on common sense and are not driven by self-interest. These are alien concepts in F1.

So here's our five-point 'wish-list' that covers the priorities that must be addressed.

1) Create a genuine and truly independent 'strategy group' headed by a person of platinum-level motorsport experience and supported by a structured team recruited from experts in the key criteria: technical, sporting, commercial and promotion. This new organisation would be commissioned immediately to exhaustively investigate each area of F1 - to create a cast-iron five-year plan by the end of 2017.

2) The top teams who form the current Strategy Group must be pegged back. They are too powerful and too divisive to control F1 as they do right now. A franchise system could create equality among entrants and allow them to have a voice - but they should be stripped of their power to shape regulations. That should be in the hands of the new organisation described in point 1.

3) Within that five-year plan, a new commercial structure should be proposed that offers a better deal for race teams, circuits and promoters, to relieve the financial pressures that have pushed too many teams over the edge and have made hosting a grand prix unsustainable without significant government support.

4) Immediately open up digital avenues for the promotion of F1 and engage with its global audience in a manner befitting the 21st century. A more 'enlightened' attitude could revolutionise engagement this year, but within that five-year plan it should also be possible to re-write the outdated TV model by which F1 has lived since the 1980s.

5) Nurture the junior categories of motor racing and break the glass ceiling that thwarts so many underfunded racing drivers from getting a genuine shot at F1. Scholarships and prize drives should be the reward for talent climbing the single-seater ladder, subsidised by F1. A more formal structure to F1's engagement with educational establishments would also encourage the development of engineering talent and make the prospect of a career in motorsport a tangible reality for more young people.

Can you think of other aspects that need tackling? I bet you can.

But will Liberty take any of the above seriously? It'll depend on whether it is genuine in its bid to invest in F1 as a form of global entertainment - or whether it'll be tempted to suck the profits out, in the manner of vilified private equity shareholder CVC Capital Partners.

Happily, there are signals that Liberty is already showing good intentions. The process of assessing what it's buying is well under way - and there's talk that the obvious figure to take that leadership role we've suggested is already being lined up. Ross Brawn would be an ideal and fantastic strategist to map the future of a sport he understands inside out.

As for Ecclestone, where does he fit in? He said himself last week he doesn't know, that it's up to Liberty. Predictions where this man is concerned are futile, but this time - this time - the exit might be beckoning. Perhaps. We can but hope.

What I'm intrigued to find out is how much immediate impact we'll see from the new owners once the new season gets underway in Melbourne. There are promises that each grand prix should be treated like a Superbowl, but will a change be obvious from the get-go - or will it be the same old business as usual?

We're told the deal will be done before the lights go out in March, so we shouldn't have long to wait to find out. Just like Autosport, it'll look familiar - but from here, it's all a new adventure.