Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

I had a nightmare a few nights ago. It was set in Formula 1's near future.

The sport had moved away from its European base entirely. The cost of feeding the debts the sport's owners had incurred in buying F1 meant they could no longer stage races that weren't being funded by governments. Just to keep ahead of the interest on those debts required the sport's owners be paid obscene amounts of money from race organisers in order to show up and stage a grand prix.

In the western democracies the idea of paying millions of tax payers' money to a bunch of billionaires to stage a race was a non-starter. But those governments unconstrained by the ballot box and looking to advertise themselves as investment havens happily paid. And F1 moved eastwards, doing its stuff exclusively in palatial venues that sat cheek by jowl with starving citizens - either there or rising like a mirage out of deserts.

The car manufacturers were long-gone; there were no races in the important European or American markets, and they could also see which way the wind was blowing on public opinion and realised that participation would become a pr liability.

So the championship consisted once more of specialist teams. Sort of. They were allowed in at the governing body's discretion and as such had to agree to its terms. Which meant spec-cars liveried up differently, supplied by an FIA-nominated manufacturer, powered by an FIA-nominated engine manufacturer.

No technical development was allowed and as such teams had no need of designers, development engineers, windtunnels, CFD programmes. Just a driver, a race engineer to play with the bars, springs and gear ratios and a team principal/manager.

Those team principals from an earlier era, who couldn't be dictated to, who refused to have absolute control imposed on them, who had independent spirit and means, had been run out of the sport years before.

This allowed the owners and governing body together a blank canvas on which to impose their ideal vision. Rid of anyone who didn't buy into that vision, they had peopled the sport exclusively with their own employees.

How they had gone about ridding the sport of those few strong individuals was a very Machiavellian tale that involved getting them to defend themselves against a series of 'crimes' interpreted from deliberately vague pieces of regulation that could be contrived any way the governing body chose.

The teams weren't allowed to do their own commercial deals - their running budgets were supplied by the sport's owners. Sponsors came through a central agency which then allocated which liveries went with which teams. As employees, the participants wielded no political power whatsoever.

What sponsors there were tended to be global civil engineering companies, looking for the latest contract to build dams, bridges and power stations in undeveloped countries. Them and the tobacco companies and the banks and other financial institutions.

The racing was actually pretty good, largely because the standard spec was based on a feature Autosport had run some years before, where Gary Anderson had outlined a set of regs that would allow them to overtake. But occasionally if it was a dull race, drivers were instructed to put on a show. They too were employees of the owners and had no say whatsoever.

Once one of them had refused to comply. He'd been dismissed that same afternoon. He went to the press, told them what was going on and within 48 hours had been served a writ for defamation of character of some of the big chiefs behind the sport. He lost the case too - because none of those who could have come forward to confirm what he was saying was true were willing to surrender their livelihood.

After this case, software was installed on the cars that allowed the race director to cut individual cylinders of individual engines at the flick of a switch. So if a guy was building up too much of lead, he'd find his horsepower cut until the pack were with him - or even ahead of him. With his full performance returned, he was then able to try to fight his way back to the front.

As employees, these drivers weren't rich. Their salaries were capped and they relied on prize money to make a living. As such it didn't do for them to upset those in power, to whom they were totally beholden.

Because the teams were small, so were the budgets. The lion's share of the billions of yuan being eased out of the governments was effectively feeding the banks that had lent the owners the money to buy the sport, and its whole direction was being dictated by that.

But this was not generally known. Because the press couldn't write about it. Actually, there was no press as such. Independent journals or journalists invariably had their application for a pass turned down and had no way of getting into the paddock. The reports came via supposed journalists who were in reality - yes, you've guessed it - yet more employees of the sport's owners.

Owing to the fact that very few native citizens actually a) had an interest in the racing or b) could afford the admission price, in the main the crowd consisted of the host country's armed forces. The whole idea of the race was to advertise the country and TV was the only thing that mattered. Having a crowd was irrelevant.

So grandstands-full of soldiers and policemen in civilian clothing were bused in to make the event look popular. Those grandstands around the back, away from where the hand-held tv cameras were allowed to operate, just had painted seats that looked like a crowd when seen as the background to a panning shot of a speeding car.

I woke up with a huge sense of relief that it had all just been a dream. But I've been feeling uneasy ever since; for some reason I just can't put my finger on.