The first warning shots of a new war

By comparison with last year's edition, the 2010 British Grand Prix was a Sunday School picnic, with the acrimony and politics of the FIA/FOTA war well and truly forgotten. True, they were recalled with widespread shudders on Friday evening during the extremely pleasant BRDC-hosted media BBQ - first laid on a year ago when it was believed that event would be the last on the all-time classic circuit after a chancer persuaded Ecclestone Donington had the wherewithal to hijack the race - but, for the rest, the acid of June 2009 was best left forgotten.

There was a brief flurry of excitement after a Sunday newspaper disclosed a full month after this revelation - see below * - that all was possibly not totally kosher with the financial arrangements struck by Bernie Ecclestone when a commercial deal was struck between the F1 tsar and a Max Mosley-dominated FIA, for suddenly, come 2011, it appears the governing body faces a €7m (£6m) shortfall due to omission of a crucial clause in the 113-year commercial rights' contract.