Rule changes under threat

Put simply, any changes before 2008 demand unanimous agreement among the teams and, with the June World Motor Sport Council meeting (the cut-off point for agreeing to early adoption of many of Mosley's changes, which mainly involve cost-cutting measures) fast approaching, there does not appear to be any commercial progress.

It is no secret that the 10 teams want a bigger slice of the F1 commercial pie than the 23 percent of the revenue that they currently share between them. According to McLaren boss Ron Dennis, the pressure to agree a new commercial deal is not coming from the teams but from the three German banks that ended up owning 75 percent of the F1 business following the demise of the German EMTV and Kirch entities.

Dennis said in Indianapolis on Friday: "The three banks are sat with significant debt or equity, however you want to interpret it, on their books, and they know that that equity is reducing in value as we move closer to 2007. Two of the banks have taken the prudent view of significantly writing down the value of that equity.

"One bank, whose involvement is currently indirectly underwritten by a government, is reluctant to write that equity down, so we have a strong desire of the three banks and the remaining shareholder [Bernie Ecclestone] to construct a commercial deal that is attractive enough to us to sign."

While the banks might be in a hurry to attach some longer term value to their investment, there would appear to be no hurry for the teams to agree a new deal, other than the creation of a more stable basis on which to pitch for commercial sponsorship.

Dennis added: "We are bound by a contract that we intend to honour [the current Concorde Agreement] and any movement away from that is going to require some pretty Herculean negotiations from a variety of people. And I don't think the banks realise yet how precarious their position is and until they do nobody's going to really move from the position they've adopted."