Steve Cooper: On the Limit

FIA president Max Mosley once famously made the observation that a Formula 1 race should be a little like a chess match: demanding and taxing on a mental level, where the culmination of an afternoon's strategy leads to a singular, decisive move rather than a rash of scrambled and impetuous stabs at glory.

Mosley later admitted that it hadn't been one of his most insightful comments when he was barraged with complaints from fans who wanted their motor racing to be a little more exciting than a board game, thank you very much.

But his analogy was correct in another way: away from the track, the running of the sport is very much played out like one huge and massively complex game of chess. And F1's power brokers are all grandmaster tacticians who have learned through experience just how to put their opposition in check at the most inopportune moment.

Look at the sport's best (power) players - people like Flavio Briatore (below), Bernie Ecclestone, Luca di Montezemolo; they use the paddock as their board while rival teams and team principals are their play-pieces. And like true grandmasters, they can play several games at a time, often feigning ignorance or disinterest in some matches in order to trick their opponent into lowering his guard.

Look at how Spyker boss Colin Kolles made an aggressive opening move against the customer squads at this year's Malaysian Grand Prix, armed with the technical drawings that he claimed proved the similarities between Red Bull's RB3 and Toro Rosso's STR02. It was a strong, although not a winning, salvo - but one that put his opponents in check for the remainder of the year and gave Kolles far greater leverage to achieve his ultimate aims.

Of course, even a grandmaster can be dethroned. Look at Briatore's humiliating defeat when Ron Dennis played a deft hand to scoop Fernando Alonso out of Renault and into the arms of McLaren in December 2005. The Italian looked on and glowered, privately plotting a way of gaining revenge in the most public and painful way. Are we now seeing the gradual redressing of the balance?

This Machiavellian quest for power and supremacy is something many find alluring - particularly in an environment such as F1, where morals are low and rewards are high. Up and down the paddock, the sport's chief protagonists stalk their prey, noting personal grievances and manoeuvring themselves into positions they feel are advantageous.

The strongest guys can nurse their grievances for weeks and months - years, even - as they look for the opportunity to perform that one, beautifully judged manoeuvre that will bring their rival to his knees.

That's why you need to look at any event within the paddock not as a singular, unprompted action but rather as a reaction to one or more concurrent events that are being played out around it. When I first started reporting on F1, I took with me a personal mantra: 'Believe nothing until you know it to be true'. I was quickly disabused of the notion, switching to 'Believe everything until you know it to be false' within a mere three races.

In F1, rarely are you surprised by an event that may have seemed impossible just days earlier. Like adept street conjurers, the best players have learned a skillful sleight of hand that fools the eye and destabilises the opponent while seemingly maintaining everything within perfect order.

Is that what we're witnessing as F1 splatters, splinters and careens through a summer of scandal and discontent - the discreet playing out of a number of vendettas on an epic scale? Perhaps. And, as any good chess player knows, sometimes you never see your opponent's truest intentions until he makes the final, killer move. Check mate.