Todt is right to play hardball over radio

FIA president Jean Todt's decision to support a clampdown on Formula 1 team radio is as brazen a move as we have seen from the governing body since the Max Mosley era.

During a presidency so far typified by the following of procedure and a shying away from confrontation, it's intriguing to see Todt now so willing to give the nod to changes that he believes are for the greater good of the sport, even if they ruffle feathers in the pitlane.

In seeing eye-to-eye with Bernie Ecclestone on the need to bring the drama back and make the drivers the stars again, he is well aware that the team-radio overhaul is going to expose him to flak, and likely produce some controversial moments in weeks to come.

But his role is not to avoid criticism. It's to help the sport as a whole.

Irrespective of the consequences of the latest move, there's a sense that Todt has become frustrated by the way his previous non-aggression policy towards the teams has been exploited by them to block changes that benefit the sport.

And we are not just talking about big-picture stuff like costs, and car and engine regulations; the irritation stretches across much smaller matters too.

Let's take car numbers as an example. I remember a conversation with South Korea's then new race promoter back in 2011 who cited that one of the biggest complaints from spectators was that they couldn't tell which driver was which because the car numbers were too small.

To an established audience in Europe, with an F1 heritage, the size of the numbers may not be that important. But to Won-Hwa Park and the new Asian audience that F1 was so eager to attract, it mattered a lot.

Korean GP organisers complained that tiny car numbers were tough on spectators new to F1 © LAT

The Korean fans were new to the sport and, with helmet designs no longer useful as a means of identifying drivers, spectators in the grandstands did not know automatically whether it was a Red Bull, a Toro Rosso or a McLaren blasting by. And that, to them, was a turn-off.

Todt has long been aware of this issue and has raised the matter several times in team meetings since he became president. His wish seemed so simple: let's make the numbers bigger so the audience can tell instantly which driver is which.

Furthermore, with Todt's idea of permanent numbers for drivers having been agreed, it seemed a no-brainer to make them bigger and make the most of the new marketing opportunities. What was there to lose?

To the teams, clearly a lot. For each time Todt suggested making the numbers bigger, the response was that it was impossible to do so because larger digits would take up valuable sponsorship space. No team agreement meant no way to change the rules.

The car-number issue may seem to have little consequence, but what it demonstrates is how things that should be easy for the sport's governing body to implement are actually nigh-on impossible if you want to play it by the book.

And if such relatively innocuous matters like race numbers cannot be pushed through, then what chance is there of solving more essential but difficult issues like cost controls, future car designs, tyre rules and engine restrictions?

F1 has been going through some soul-searching this year in response to its popularity crisis. And while everyone in the sport tends to agree that change is needed if grand prix racing is to embrace the future with optimism, no one has yet put their head above the parapet and shown a willingness to lay out that new path.

Maybe that has now changed. Maybe the FIA's radio clampdown is a sign that the time for a new approach is upon us, and that things are not going to stay the same. The time to sit back and do nothing has gone.