From the Pulpit

After a season in which indisputable on-track brilliance (Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, occasionally Michael Schumacher) has often been overshadowed by the depressingly ugly spectre of political wrangling (Imola-gate, Indy-gate, Button-gate), at last we have some unequivocally good news.

We have a new World Champion - a worthy winner, and the youngest in Formula One history, to boot. His battle with Raikkonen was enthralling to watch, and was surely the first of many epic encounters between the two.

But there is plenty else to shout about, too. Minardi, for so long a struggling minnow, are if not yet a big fish then certainly no longer drowning. Not even struggling to swim with the tide. Ditto Sauber - who, although their finances were never remotely as precarious as Minardi's, could not have gone on indefinitely without serious investment or takeover.

But takeover, by BMW, is what has this year happened to Sauber - just as takeover, by Red Bull, is what has this year happened to Minardi. And this week, in the shape of strong rumours of a likely eleventh team, backed by Honda (who now own 100 per cent of B.A.R), F1 has yet another good-news story to celebrate.

Yes, the sport has problems - undoubtedly, it does. Fewer people worldwide (certainly, fewer people Europe-wide) appear to be prepared to give up their Sunday afternoons to watch Grands Prix, and fewer newspapers worldwide (certainly, fewer newspapers UK-wide) are prepared to devote significant space to reporting on them. But a new team is a new team, and its arrival is something to be enjoyed.

Particularly by Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. For, in the long and tedious 'battle' between the manufacturers on the one side (GPWC, GPMA, call it what they will) and the old guard on the other (FIA, FOM, Ferrari... plus Red Bull Racing and Jordan/Midland), the move by Honda to launch a new team as early as 2006 could not have been allowed without express FOM/FIA support.

Put it another way: had Bernie wished for whatever reason to put a spanner in Honda's works, he would have instructed Max to dust off an esoteric sub-clause of an arcane regulation, doubtless drawn up by that formidable forensic mind for the very purpose of strangling unco-operative new teams at birth (and deliberately shrouded in obscure and obscurantist verbiage until required), in order to prevent the Japanese from realising their dream.

But he did not. And, to my mind, that suggests that Bernie is as sure as he needs to be that Honda's new team will align itself with the old guard - which means that B.A.R will, of course, do likewise. (Indeed, the relatively lenient penalty served on B.A.R in respect of their Imola-gate fuel tank irregularities probably decided that long ago, if truth be known.)

As, surely, will Toyota (do likewise, that is), whose biggest cheeses have recently hinted that it is the FIA Formula One World Championship, and not a rose by any other name, into which they are prepared to sink US$550 million per year (or thereabouts, allegedly). As will Minardi, of course, now that they must align themselves with Red Bull Racing.

The Renault board will also fall into line behind the Japanese giants - and that will delight no-one more than Flavio Briatore, for whom conflict of any kind with his great friend Ecclestone is never comfortable.

Which leaves BMW (i.e., the team formerly known as Sauber), McLaren and Williams. Well, now that Williams are no longer manufacturer-backed, they can do their own thing - which, in F1 circles, tends to mean that they will do Ecclestone's own thing. Some pundits insist that Sir Frank has already signed up with FOM/FIA/Ferrari. In my view, such is probably not the case. Or, to be more accurate, not yet the case; but I expect it to happen soon.

BMW? Undoubtedly, Mario Theissen remains ideologically sympathetic with the aims of GPWC/GPMA, but, as and when it becomes clear that Toyota and Honda favour free collective bargaining within the current regime over outright revolution, so the Munich board, now far more nakedly exposed to the fearsome dangers of bad F1 publicity than hitherto, will surely instruct Theissen to fall into line.

Moreover, I think he already expects it. Like Mercedes-Benz's Jurgen Hubbert before him - who, as Theissen perhaps did as recently as a couple of years ago, at one time may have regarded F1 as an amusing diversion in which the seeds of an enjoyable retirement job could be sown, but quickly learnt to his cost that such is very much not the case if doing that involves attempting anything that might adversely affect Ecclestone's ability to trouser greenbacks - he will realise that resistance is, ultimately, futile.

McLaren? Politically, Ron Dennis is by some margin the most astute of all team principals. He is also the bravest and the most honest. As such, although he would and doubtless will deny it till his dying day, Mosley fears him. And even Ecclestone, who once told me that he "is scared of nothing, not even death", is chary of the McLaren chairman. But no man can afford to be an island forever, not even one as stout-hearted as Ron, and eventually, surely, he will have to climb down.

But he probably knew that all along.

Many years ago, when I was a young reporter, soaking-wet behind the ears, a wise old hack told me, "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied." That maxim has stood me in good stead for a long time.

(In a previous column, some months ago, I cited that same maxim when predicting that, despite official denials, Rubens Barrichello would indeed join B.A.R for 2006. Equally, canny Williams-watchers were always damn-near certain that, whatever Frank said about not being prepared to take money in place of Button, money - lots of it, preferably - was precisely what he wanted to get out of the situation. His no-surrender rhetoric was but an ante-upping strategy, and it worked.)

Returning to Ron, then, what can we conclude? Well, the GPWC/GPMA-v-FOM/FIA dispute has always been about just one thing: money. The manufacturers, and the teams associated with those manufacturers, and every right-thinking person in the F1 paddock, for that matter, think it ludicrous that the 10-or-11-or-12 purveyors of the sport's cars and drivers (i.e., the teams) should get to share out only half of TV revenues (and only a quarter of total revenues) while its commercial wing (read: Bernie) bags the rest... save the secret portion of that hefty dividend it pays annually into the regulator's (the FIA's) coffers.

Similarly, Ecclestone and Mosley have allowed the newcomers-to-F1 among the manufacturers' representatives to believe that a split, a schism and a new series were possible, in order not to have to talk turkey too early. Many of these early-adopters (or naive fools, as Bernie and Max privately think of them, surely) are no longer involved, of course: I'm thinking of not only Hubbert, but also Wolfgang Reitzle, Richard Parry-Jones and doubtless others whose names I cannot now summon-up the effort to recall, or even type.

But, surely, despite official denials, Ron knew different. Just as he did in 1997, when the terms of the current Concorde Agreement were being framed - when, supported by Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell but no-one else, Ron held out for a better deal for the teams than the one which Ecclestone and Mosley had first offered, for the sake of not only himself and his business but also that of his rivals and their businesses - he has allowed his GPWC/GPMA colleagues to be steered into a place from which turkey can be talked. And it will be; hopefully soon.

And if turkey is talked, then McLaren and all the other teams - and, yes, the manufacturers who supply engines but not chassis, too, who have hitherto received diddly-squat - will get to eat a larger portion of F1's still-gigantic financial pie. And deservedly so.

And all will be (nearly) right with the F1 world.

After that, all someone will need to do is persuade people to start watching Grands Prix again, and persuade newspaper editors to start devoting column inches to it again.

Supported by an experienced, expert, creative and non-partisan PR department, financed by a few crumbs scraped off that gigantic financial pie (you know it makes sense, Bernie), Ron would do that rather well. Now that's what I call a retirement job...

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- The Autosport.com Team

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