Analysis: Races to Deliver Verdict on F1's Rule Row

Bernie Ecclestone smiled ironically as he commented on the Formula One war of words between world motor sport chief Max Mosley, McLaren and Williams.

"Max is becoming pen friends with Frank and Ron, which is nice," he said.

Clearly, after team bosses Frank Williams and Ron Dennis accused Mosley of behaving like a dictator in implementing changes and the FIA president in turn derided "vague claims and confused criticisms", their correspondence is not the sort written on scented notepaper.

But while the argument will do little to impress uncertain sponsors and is set to leave a legal cloud hanging over the season, it may ultimately be settled on the track. It will take at least a year for an arbitration ruling to emerge from Switzerland, by which time the racing will have delivered its own verdict.

The row will rumble on however because the team bosses, who are strongly opposed to some of the changes, want to define clearly who makes up the rules and how they are imposed.

"They've got their job to do, and I've got mine," Mosley told Reuters this week. "And I think that's the fundamental problem. Their objective, both of them, is to finish first and second in every race through the season.

"What I'm trying to do is run a sport which is fair and equitable for everybody and where there is proper competition and it's difficult to predict who's won until the end of the season.

"That's why in the end the teams can never make the rules because what a team wants and needs is not the same as what the public want and need or the sporting body."

Racing Start

A team that has spent $20 million developing two-way telemetry is clearly not going to be as delighted by a sudden ban on such systems as rivals without their resources. While Williams and McLaren seek arbitration, the first race of the season is looming in Australia next week and an effective ceasefire has already been declared.

The message coming through from both is 'Let's Talk'.

"We're always ready to talk to them and the only reason we did it (introduced the rule changes) without a lot of consultation was because they wouldn't meet," said Mosley. "I think that now really it's about time to get on with the racing, so as far as I'm concerned that's enough and then if they want to arbitrate, I can't stop them."

When asked if he could envisage an eventual 'out-of-court settlement', Williams told reporters at the team factory on Wednesday that anything was possible.

"Max's letter was worth reading, if you are a student of English," he said. "It was a wonderful, very clever letter. We all know he's a gifted man. Nothing is going to happen between now and Australia and I imagine that at the end of the year the teams will sit down with Max and Bernie and review which changes have worked and which haven't.

"The main issue by a zillion miles is the abuse of process ... the problem with precipitate rule-making is that it costs money."

Public Debate

Williams and McLaren on Wednesday issued a brief letter reiterating their points and saying that they did not intend to be drawn into an unseemly public debate. Mosley meanwhile said that his relationship with Williams and Dennis would not be affected in the slightest by the disagreement.

"I've known Frank since I went and bought a Brabham off him in Autumn 1967, when we were all in our twenties. Frank and I talk on the phone quite regularly and this would never interfere with the relationship," he said.

"It's harder to communicate with Ron but as far as I am concerned I have always got on well with him personally and I hope I always will. They are going to come racing and we are going to do everything we can to help everybody and, below the level of Ron and Frank with talks to their technical people and so on, that's all fine.

"When we've done the first three races we'll have a meeting of all those people because there are bound to be things that nobody has foreseen, problems that have come up. We'll sit down and solve them.

"The discourse at a lower level is absolutely sensible and fine, in fact I think a lot of people even in the teams that are dissenting are actually very happy about what has happened."