Ron: Bernie using diversionary tactics...

"There are two reasons Bernie is doing this," said Dennis at Indianapolis. "There is a genuine drive from all the teams to address the issue of costs and to revisit the value of F1 as a show. The world championship is over, and Ferrari is dominant. World sport has dropping viewership. We are in difficult times. These are facts, so you start to test ideas.

"Clearly there is nothing we will do in F1 that will change the world economic situation. There's nothing we can do about the fact that the world championship was decided in a very dominant way, and since that time interest has waned. We can't change that. Change is something we've got to be extremely careful about, because very often we change things for the worse.

"In respect to why Bernie is very active at the moment, why is he dropping into the system five or six things - such as let's look at electronics and so forth... In essence it is the absolutely normal tactic used when he wants to distract the teams away from the commercial issues that are now being discussed.

"He wants to stop the teams being focused on trying to find a balanced way forward in respect of the equity that is currently owned by the banks as a result of the demise of Kirch.

"It's like almost any military operation. If you want to go and do something over here, create a diversion over there. Get the teams rushing around, saying: ' my goodness, no changing!

"But we've gone a bridge too far, as it were, to be wrong-footed like that. We will not be diverted away from looking for a sound, fair, economic solution to the future."