Dodgy Business

The Bahrain Grand Prix was an odd weekend. Suffice to say that events on the track did not exactly take centre stage.

Funnily enough, the arrival of the media en masse at Sakhir's press room on Thursday coincided exactly with the BMW and Mercedes statements distancing themselves from the activities of Max Mosley in a Kensington basement flat.

The FIA's director of Communications, Richard Woods, had yet to arrive but the general feeling was that the combined top-spinning ability of Alistair Campbell and Bjorn Borg was unlikely to make a start on getting Max out of this mess.

Max Mosley © LAT

Woods works from the FIA offices in Paris and London but he spends his weekends at the family abode down in Somerset where, apparently, mobile phone reception is none too clever.

On Sunday March 30 I was down at the golf driving range, where I'd signed my daughter up for some starter lessons. They were going through their warm-up routine, running up and down on the spot.

"Right," said the Scouse coach, "If I say 'Tiger Woods', I want you to do it as fast as you possibly can. If I say 'Nick Faldo' you do it medium speed, and if I say 'Colin Montgomery' you go really slowly. Because Colin has eaten all the pies and has a big fat belly!"

This, irrespective of the fact that some of the watching Mums made Colin Montgomery look like Kate Moss.

I'd just told the guy that he'd have the fattist PC police after him when my mobile bleeped with a text message - 'Max with uniformed hookers - with pics. Today's News of the World.'

Meanwhile, down in Somerset, Woods had just got into his car to drive his son to a football match. A couple of miles from home the reception improved and his phone went into meltdown. Richard stopped at a petrol station and bought a copy of the News of the World.

What did he think when he saw the front page?

"I thought, I hope for their sakes they can stand this up!" But then he turned to pages 4/5/6/7...

Returning quickly to his car, Woods put his newspaper in the glove-box, finished his journey, got his son onto the pitch and hurried back to the car to digest the story. And then he rang Mosley.

The FIA president was, at that stage, ignorant of the contents of that morning's News of the World. One can only speculate on how far he spat his cornflakes.

The press room gossip was along the same lines, the 'where were you when...' talk reaching JFK/Lennon proportions.

The reaction had been surprisingly quiet in the intervening four days between Sunday morning and the paddock congregating in Bahrain.

Dr. Mario Theissen and Norbert Haug © LAT

There were obviously issues of legality but it also spoke volumes about the fear of reprisal that permeates the F1 paddock when it comes to criticising Max Mosley or the FIA. The general feeling seemed to be that nothing further needed to be said because Max had already hung himself.

The BMW/Mercedes statement was thus seized on with gratitude by a news hungry media desperate for Friday's story. And when Max retaliated with a statement that mentioned the Second World War, there was much rubbing of hands among the Fleet St contingent.

"He really has lost the plot," someone said. "It's like Basil Fawlty."

Toyota and Honda had joined in by this stage, talking about standards of conduct and F1's image.

"If we hang fire for half an hour I'm sure we'll get another statement from Max denouncing Pearl Harbour," one of the Fleet St lads suggested, to howls of laughter.

In the paddock a lot of people, Ron Dennis principal among them, were doing a very good job of publicly masking any potential schadenfreude.

But Jackie Stewart's tartan trews were moving along with an even sprightlier step than normal. In the Daily Telegraph, Kevin Garside made the well-received point that even if Mosley had criticised JYS's comedy music hall trousers, at least they remained round his waist, not his ankles...

When Friday morning came it was almost, what the hell are those noisy things out on the circuit? The cars felt like an interruption to the serious business. Until Lewis creamed his McLaren into the wall, of course. The Fleet St boys now had their Saturday story as well!

And there was a humorous twist. An FIA statement revealed that Lewis, naughty boy, had been reprimanded for not having a medical check after being involved in an 'indecent.' Obviously, they meant 'incident.' But it spoke volumes about what was on everyone's minds at Sakhir...

With a BMW British press dinner long scheduled for Saturday night, there was more levity when BMW's press officer Jorg Kottmeier was spied coming round the press room with a list, ticking off names.

Kotty, a good bloke, is one of those people you don't stand next to for long when you're five feet six. Officially, he's six feet eight but I reckon he's eight feet if he's an inch. I find myself speaking to his belly button. And, sorry if you are politically sensitive, but in light of his stature he's known as 'The Watch Tower.'

"Ah," someone said, "here comes Kotty to see how many Englanders still want to come to the Germans' dinner party..."

We all did, of course. Apart from the fact that in the prevailing political climate nobody wanted to miss anything, Robert Kubica had just planted his BMW on pole - in case we were forgetting why we were really there.

Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica © XPB/LAT

Mario Theissen was first subjected to the 'where were you when' treatment but wasn't about to be drawn on any further reaction to Max's comments about the war.

What tends to happen at these things is that the major players swap tables for each course, giving the attendant hacks a chance to talk to them all. When we got Nick Heidfeld he was very interesting about the state of play at BMW.

"Normally," he said, "when you first test a car and it's not very good out of the box, that's the way it stays. You know you are in for a bad year. But I have never had a car that has improved as dramatically as this car has."

His experience of the car to date prompts Nick to believe that there is still more to come.

Theissen explained that an aero problem had been the initial barrier to progress, and solving it had opened up the kind of improvement Heidfeld was talking about. They're not claiming they are going to win the championship but are clearly quite excited.

With Heidfeld, we skirted tenderly around the subject of Kubica's pace and stellar reputation with drivers such as Hamilton and Alonso. Experience teaches you that it's never a winner. If a team-mate is inferior it's poor form to knock him, if he's superior, bringing him up is like talking about Hitler.

We contented ourselves by telling Heidfeld that just as Niki Lauda was christened 'The Rat' by the British press, Kubica is known as 'The Owl'. Or, after Montreal, 'The Indestructible Owl'.

"So you better have him well tucked up before you get to Singapore, because you've got no chance against him in the dark!" someone offered. By now the drink was talking and poor Nick was glancing at his watch. As I said, a strange weekend, and not one for the PC brigade.