Here’s a theory. Please tell me why it’s wrong——

This is all about Frank Williams.

Mosley is a tool in Bernie’s hand, as he has been for many years. Ecclestone has always used Max and the FIA for whatever rebounding political purpose was required. As compensation for their loyalty (or contractual indebtedness) to Bernie, Max & his goons have made some money and been permitted to jet around the world pretending to be governmental big shots, as if they were some genuine agency of public interest.

But in fact Max is old, pathetic, humiliated and presently grieving. (An aggressive gossip could argue that Max’s son died of shame before reaching middle age. Compare this with Bernie, who’s absorbed an expensive divorce in his deep senior years without scandal, vitriol, or even convincing criticism; his daughters have yet to embarrass him.) Maybe Max has gifts as an administrator, but the truth is that if Bernie decided the FIA weren’t worth having around anymore, it would be a real problem for the “governing body.” Unlike the sponsors or the manufactures or the broadcasters or any of the other people with whom Bernie’s constructed a contractual empire, the FIA is only necessary so long as he thinks they are. They have to do some chore to prove that they’re still useful.

And that chore is breaking the hold that Frank Williams has on the size and composition of the grid. More than any other team, his ‘small shop’ has had the most to lose if customer cars were permitted… As I understand it, he’s always been the one to squawk most loudly when some small outfit like Duncan Stephen Motoring lines up a few vendors and decides to go racing in F1.

And for a variety of reasons, including history, righteousness and photogenic happenstance, the world is ready to listen to Frank Williams if he complains about being disadvantaged.

Meanwhile anyone who turns on a TV set mentally compares the typical 45 entrants in NASCAR to the small, incestuous field of F1 and wonders why –if F1 racing is so grandly elegant– more racers aren’t interested enough to enter a team.

I don’t think Bernie cares one way or another… If people want KERS, let ‘em have KERS. If people want overtaking, let ‘em overtake. If people want a lot of teams, that’s OK too. He’s not carrying some precious vision of the sport, he just wants to keep his fantastic network of contracts cooking along. Remember this quotation from Ecclestone on why he loves his work: “You wake up in the morning and don’t know what’s going to happen. Teams lodge complaints against other teams, one team may be facing financial ruin – there’s something to negotiate, sell or mediate every day. And, that’s just what I do best and enjoy most.”

So every now and then Bernie has to threaten to sue everyone in the world, as he did earlier this week. But what’s important is that it’s the other teams who are being compelled to make Frank Williams happy; Bernie himself doesn’t appear to be the iron-fisted guy, which is a neat trick. And if Max Mosley spends the last months of his working life in a haze of flying-spittle bitterness and recrimination, well, that’s no skin off Bernie’s nose either.

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PS #1– For the record, I admire Eccleston for being so pragmatic about things… That’s a gift from God. My career could use a little more of that clarity in these difficult months.

PS #2– Thanks for Stephen for letting me ramble on his blog, this wasn’t his idea.

I find it funny that customer cars never came back on the agenda, apparently because the FIA has made it clear that they won’t be allowed. I heard Ian Phillips confess a couple of races ago that he was wrong to argue so vociferously against customer cars because it is the easiest way to drastically cut costs. And given Force India’s deal with McLaren-Mercedes, you sense that they’d be the second team after Toro Rosso to field a customer car if they were allowed tomorrow.

I have zero sympathy with Red Bull. It did a deal with Force India that in a return for a multi-million pound payment, it would be permitted to use customer cars in 2008 and 2009. After that point it was made quite clear that customer cars would be banned. If it wants to extend the deadline, then legally it must re-open negotiations with Force India. Since other teams may well use the loophole, FIF1 is likely to want more money than last time as well…

Button’s won six out of seven races which were often processional…. But at least there were loud cars with garish colors and pretty girls walking around the pits and a few hours of good TV.

But for the past few months, we’ve been told that this-or-that date is where the rubber is *really* going to meet the road in terms of the politics…. Then that date arrives, reports are twittered, and then we’re told that an even more important threshold is just a few more days away.

Even bad racing is better than good politics!