JULY 13, 2005

So what is the story in Monaco tomorrow?

The meeting of FIA President Max Mosley and F1 team principals Ron Dennis and Christian Horner tomorrow in Monaco is obviously related to the decision of the FIA World Council to find the teams guilty of "acts prejudicial to the interests of a competition". If it were related to any other subject, Horner would not be there because the Red Bull Racing boss stands with the other teams on most issues and is the most junior of all the team principals.

It is fairly clear from talking to team people that if the International Court of Appeal upholds the decision of the World Council then the seven teams involved will go to a civil court and that would not be any good at all for the FIA nor for the Formula 1 World Championship. So the obvious next step is a compromise.

But how can anyone compromise without a loss of face? This may sound like a ridiculous question but there are powerful egos involved and so a solution must be found by which none of those involved look bad. And that means that some other means must be found to paper over the problem. The obvious route is that there would be some form of new evidence brought forward which could be used to convince the World Council in September to rescind the punishments, which would then negate the need for any Court of Appeal and all that would inevitably follow.

Whatever the details we expect to see some kind of a deal being hammered out between the parties involved. It does not really matter for the sport who is backing down because the key issue is to ensure that the World Championship is not disrupted by the messy spat caused by the debacle at Indianapolis. The parties involved in all of this may not agree on much but they do appear to agree on this.

This will not solve any of the other problems that exist in F1 but stepping back from the cliff edge is a good move for all concerned.