Business and charity in Formula One
Last week's installment of the Weekly Grapevine hit the nail squarely on the head when suggesting that Ferrari's self-inflicted demotion to garagiste status had ulterior motives that would shortly be surfacing. But, as is the case with 'soft' news, the instrument used was not a sledgehammer, but a nutcracker of a size suited to opening shells without destroying the contents.
As was fully expected, popular news outlets took the ball and ran with it, with quotes from an interview with FIA President Max Mosley substantiating virtually verbatim what our original source indicated immediately after Luca di Montezemolo asserted that "Ferrari must not be seen as an integral part of a car manufacturing team but must be viewed as a private entity; we are today in competition against Toyota, the biggest carmaker in the world, and against manufacturing giants like Mercedes, BMW, Honda and Renault."
Of course, debates are raging as to whether: