Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

Watch the cars on the Monza track, close-cropped - and it could be any other Formula 1 venue. Red and white stripey kerbs, green grasscrete just beyond, rubbered-in black line on dark grey asphalt, a white stripe down the middle of the tyre, black carbon wishbones glinting in the sun, brash livery, violent direction change, bouncing over kerbs as downforce fights the car's urge to take off, with the dampers refereeing.

But peel back for a wider-eye view, far enough so you can see the hedges that still line much of the track behind the barriers, further back again so you see the disused old stone steps for grandstands long ago deemed too dangerously close to the track, a bit further again so you see the beautiful mature trees, further back yet so you see the ancient stone walls that surround the place and you look upon the gently crumbling banking.

And you then see that Monza is just a narrow ribbon of 2007 imposed upon a 1922 scene, the venue of some sort of tear in space/time. At some level a bronzed little man with the heart of a lion is still walking up to his Alfa on the grid, waving to the adoring pre-war crowds. A green Lotus 49 is still going like the wind, its driver intent on pulling back all that time lost to the stop, unaware yet that there's not enough fuel in his tank.

A recuperating driver in the pitlane watches his friend test a sports Ferrari; it's a sunny day, an empty track and suddenly he has a yearning: 'can I have a quick blast?' and off he goes, driving in his civvies, using his friend's crash hat. He is chased by a shadow. A mad slipstreaming bunch in the early '70s, flat out, lapping at over 150mph with a fag paper between the lot of them.

One of them passes the flag and isn't sure if he's first or second, it's so close - so he puts up his hand in celebration, hoping that will convince the timekeepers. They're everywhere these ghosts when you're at Monza. It's a place that reminds you that this is a very special sport.

Former Fiat team-mates Vincenzo Lancia and Felice Nazzaro together dug up the first sod that initiated the building of the autodromo within the royal park. The autodromo has outlasted the monarchy, yet the park has ensured the modern world still hasn't encroached upon the track - there are no modern buildings squeezing it into the 21st century. Moss hangs from the access tunnels as you cross the void and venture into the infield, into 2007.

There is much that motor racing has lost in the intervening decades, but as a reminder of what we have gained, Kimi Raikkonen's violent accident into the Ascari chicane on Saturday morning was stark.

At some moment within the one-second window of time that it takes to brake and downchange from seventh to fourth, something goes wrong and suddenly Kimi is turning towards the barrier, then creaming the side of the Ferrari along the bank before finally impacting hard and head-on with the tyre barriers.

After composing himself, he climbs out unaided, jumps up and walks across the top of the tyres, already thinking about the spare car. It was almost certainly a bigger accident than that which killed Jochen Rindt, half a mile and a million eternities away.

It's a sport that's entering a new golden age too - or could be. With one of the most exciting performers it's ever seen, settling in for the long haul while making his mark, we are witnessing legend unfolding in front of our eyes. The racing could be about to get better too if the latest tweaks being worked upon are successful.

We are all custodians of this sport: fans, media, participants, governing body. With a duty to look after it. It doesn't really belong to any of us - it was around before any of us and might, with a bit of luck and careful management, be around after us - and just asks of us a bit of upkeep and regular maintenance.

By the time this is printed the outcome of the FIA World Council meeting concerning the Ferrari/McLaren espionage case will be known.

Quite why the governing body has felt the need to get involved in this case isn't obvious - if there's been any case to answer it's surely a civil matter, just as was the Toyota/Ferrari espionage case a couple of years ago, a case in which the governing body saw need to involve itself.

This time 12 months ago - with the various questionable penalties meted out to Renault as it fought for the title with Ferrari - the sport was struggling to remain credible, but it just about got away with it. Let's hope it can do so again.

The governing body has done some fantastic things for this sport, as Kimi's Saturday morning shunt illustrated. But sometimes, surely, staying out of it is the better course of 'action' for everyone concerned.